A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. Mary is set out proceeding in haste into the hill country to the town of Judah, where she entered Zacharias' house and greeted her cousin Elizabeth. Now remember, she was up in the North, up at Nazareth. She had to travel all the way south down close to Jerusalem. Most of that's done on foot, far as we know.
At least it didn't have any Mercedes Benzes running around, that's for sure, as they have today, you know. So she Mary traveled traveled then then into into the the hill hill country country to to visit visit her her cousin Elizabeth. She had been told by the angel that her cousin, who was sterile and was an old woman, was now pregnant six months. So she went down to take a look. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby stirred in her womb.
That's in Elizabeth. Elizabeth was filled with the holy spirit and cried out in a loud voice, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Of course, this is all after the annunciation. But who am I? This is Elizabeth speaking.
But who am I that the mother of my lord should come to me? The moment that your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby stirred in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who trusted that the lord's words to her would be fulfilled. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
Amen. This account of Saint Luke, which we're reading morning after morning, and I would urge you to pick up your new testament. You're just talking in terms of a few minutes. Just a few minutes to read this text in its entirety, to get the continuity. Now I don't want to bore you, but today you see even in the most elevated circles of biblical criticism, and they are most elevated, you know.
This text of Saint Luke, and this is among our some of our good Catholic brethren, this text of Saint Luke is throw practically thrown out as having any historical worth. Now, the first point to keep it and and to me, when you're dealing with such a simple statement that God Almighty became man in the womb of a Jewish girl named Mary who was a virgin. You know, that's hard to take. That's hard to take. I want to have some evidence for this.
And believe me, there's plenty of it there. As I pointed You talk about motives of credibility, these texts over are are are overflowing with it, overflowing with it. Notice this, Mary, she's a virgin. She's not she's betrothed, therefore she has all the responsibilities of of marriage, except that it did not mean living together. She's told that she's going to have a baby through some power of God.
And she says, how can it happen? And the angel says, you don't don't believe me? Well, now look girl, you just high yourself down there to to to your cousin Elizabeth, who's advanced in age, who has the whole country knows she's been sterile, and she is now six months pregnant. What does Mary do? She goes down there and she sees.
So you see these texts are tremendously If this stuff is all a myth, what am I doing here? I'd be better out mowing the lawn or sweeping up leaves or something. Now, the first point I think we should remember is this: We're dealing with basic biological facts. They're they're about as crude as things anything in nature can be. I mean they're so basic.
The birth of human beings, how they come into being, how they they have mothers, at least most of us have. And then we're told we might have been better off we didn't have them, but that would be a little difficult too, you know. And then we are told about the birth. These are facts which what anybody, especially people in an agricultural society. And remember, the Jews were an agricultural people.
So you're dealing with extremely basic biological facts, not high blown metaphysics or ontology, or trying to make sense out of Hegel. You're not dealing with gnosticism, you're not dealing with difficulties of language, you are dealing with some basic biological facts. That a virgin becomes a mother, and a woman who was sterile and in her old age, she becomes a mother. That's the way it Now here's my point. Do you mean to tell me if supposing you say, just suppose that happened.
Do you think that people would know about this? That you had two events of this sort? Don't you think they would be noteworthy? Don't you think the people around would all know it? If the friends of Elizabeth knew she was old and sterile and now is six months pregnant, don't you think they would be a slightly amazed at that?
You think they would forget it overnight? You think it would make no difference? Remember, she was the she was the wife of Zacharias. She was not she was not a nobody. Our Blessed Mother was a nobody.
Nobody knew about her. She came from Nazareth. She came from the boondocks. It's like coming from West Of Cumberland. But Zacharias' wife was nobody She did She was she was somebody.
Now the thing is this, if you just suppose these events happened, that these basic biological facts what I've stated. Do you mean to tell me that they would be overlooked, they would be forgotten, that they would not be passed down? You're only talking in terms of two or three generations. Is there any great difficulty in trying to figure out how Matthew, Mark, and Luke ever got ahold of these facts? They were Of course they weren't on a Xerox, of course there wasn't a library book.
But heavens alive, we had Homer's Zillions and Odyssey long before we ever had it written down. And so what I'm bringing to your you good people is this, I don't know how much of this stuff you read. And and I I'm not at all against what they call this historical criticism. It's helpful, but you see, you can forget some extremely obvious facts. As CS Lewis said, The one group of people you have to be very careful about are scripture scholars.
That's that's what Lewis and Lewis was a literary man. He was a man who knew books, he knew tradition, he knew myths. That was his business, that was his trade, that's how he made a living, that's how he made his reputation at Oxford and Cambridge. Because he was a man of books of literature, and that's what he said. Beware of scripture scholars.
Why did Ronald Knox turn to his own translation of the bible? Of course, the scripture scholars didn't like what he did. So you don't hear much about Ronald Knox anymore. But his translation is still a good translation. Now, so what I want to leave with you is this simple simple fact, that you're dealing here with observable, notable, miraculous, or any word you want to use, tremendous, tremendously astonishing assertions.
Assertions. Now, were the people of this time capable of knowing about this? Well, if a woman's going to be pregnant for nine months it's something you don't hide in a closet. When an old woman has a baby who has been sterile all like that isn't something that you can just as not know about. When a virgin, young woman has a baby without any as far as they know, without any intervention of a man.
That's something notable. But you see Elizabeth is even more important, as from a motive of credibility. Much more important than Mary, as far as evidence goes. A new lawyer will tell you that. And so as we approach this To me, maybe I'm You see all this froth of Christmas.
You see it's all a lot of absolute nonsense unless it is a true fact, fact that the son of God became a human being in the womb of a virgin girl named Mary. If that is true, the world should be changed. If it's false, we should be the first ones to say let's get rid of that nonsense. You have your choice. And as far as I can see, and I've read I've read Raymond Brown and all these people, but you see you can get And of course he follows some of these German critics like Volkmann.
And I'm not denying these people haven't made contribution, but you see you can get so wrapped up in books that you can forget the human element. You can miss the trees for the woods or vice versa, however it goes. We don't wanna do that. We don't wanna do that. When you come on Christmas day to to renew, to renew.
This remember, Christ came. It's perfect past tense. When you come to Christmas as we're edging in with this kind of belief, you want everything you can get to bolster that faith, at least I do. And I can take the synoptic gospels and I say, I've got something in my hand here, and you can't eliminate it very easily. It has lasted for nearly two thousand years.
So when I bend my knee and I say that God became man, I believe it. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.