Blessed are you who believed
The great mystery of Mary's greatness lies in her faith. It is she who believed that "words spoken from the Lord will come true." The whole drama of human history began with doubting God's goodness. This is the story of original sin. The story of the third chapter of the Book of Genesis explains the present human situation, talks about what is happening in our heart. It perfectly captures the logic of sin. Note that the serpent did not directly urge Eve to break God's prohibition. He had planted doubts in her heart about the meaning of this prohibition, which made the prohibition very heavy. He continued to deny the truthfulness of God's words, suggesting that he is self-interested, because he does not want to give man the full good and reserves it only for himself. After all, such a deluded man, according to his wisdom, took care of his own good and transgressed against God's prohibition.
This logic is repeated in everyone's sin. Therefore, this account of sin is brilliant. The sin that was originally directed against God was immediately transferred to another human being. Mutual distrust, shyness, hiding something from others, further increasing alienation and distrust, deception, deception of the other, evil to the point of murder, which is reflected in the story of Cain and Abel. In the following chapters of Genesis, evil increases and God's intervention is needed to overcome it.
But why did God allow evil itself? This question comes back a lot, and for some people it even causes them to leave the Church. When God created, God gave man freedom. That is why man can say to God: no! Many people scandalized by evil in the world, in fact, would like God to control everything. So, they demand from him that he should take away man's freedom, i.e., simply take away from man what constitutes his deepest value.
God works completely different. He intervenes, but not as if we are intending to do so. Not from the outside, but from the inside, as a Man. In the Old Testament, the prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah who would fix everything and lead to God's true rule on earth. (See Micah 5:1-4 – today First Reading)
There has been tremendous unrest in the hearts of people since original sin. Constant unbelief, testing God's promises. The matter becomes so complicated that we would like to implement these promises in the dimension of social life. Then we either start to doubt or try to achieve the imagined goal through politics. Sometimes peculiar myths are created fueled by pious experiences. On the other hand, the Lord does not deal with any political matters for us, and those who refer to His commandments very often contradict them in their actions, thus scandalizing people. God has made no social revolution, nor does He intend to conduct such a revolution or evolution. He works in a completely different way: he consistently prepares and instructs, and finally he himself testifies to the burden of taking on the entire burden of human life and of powerlessness in the socio-political dimension. In the Letter of Hebrews, we read: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, 'As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.' (Cf. Heb 10: 8-9)
Not the sacrifices and burnt offerings, not the action of force, but the ordinary human life accepted with total obedience. Unfortunately, the biggest obstacle in contact with God is our expectations. If God does not do them, we break down. Such an attitude caused the Jews not to recognize the Messiah and did not accept Him. And it threatens us in the dimension of our everyday life. Unfortunately, those who believed because they saw miracles had a very flawed faith. This was the case, for example, with the disciples from Emmaus: "And we expected ..."
In these lights, we need to look at the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the words that St. Elizabeth spoke to her: Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled. (cf. Lk 1:45). Her life confirms the truth of these words. She always believed and her faith grew, starting with the Annunciation scene, through today's visitation scene, through Cana, the activity of the Lord Jesus, the Last Supper and the Cross. It is under the cross that Elizabeth's words get the clearest sense. Mary does not go on Sunday morning to anoint the Body of her Son. She was the only one who believed in his announcement of death and resurrection.
Her faith was going through a very hard test. In fact, all her life she had experienced the contradiction between popular ideas about the Messiah and the reality experienced by her. Beginning with the birth of the Son in a grotto in a strange area, without a proper home environment, through the escape, then the fate of the widow and finally the cruel death of the Son among the criminals before her eyes. Her only answer is faith, although reality contradicts general expectations. The full value of the blessing is only fully revealed after the Resurrection. Then it becomes apparent that Mary is truly "blessed among women." At the same time, only the resurrection showed the depth of God's promises. If they were in accord with human imagination, salvation, as Jesus brought, would not be a salvation embracing all people, it would not be the ultimate conquest of evil and sin.
Unfortunately, we are most often discouraged by our own expectations, the desire for direct benefits, the desire for success in life. For Mary, the harsh conditions were a blessing, because they tested her faith like gold in a crucible, giving her strength. Maybe in our lives we will not have to experience what she does. Although everyone will receive an appropriate measure for himself, her faith becomes for us a model and measure of our faith. She herself is a testimony to the truthfulness of God's promise to us. May we see it in our lives. Leaning over the manger, let us remember that this is not an idyll, but a hard experience of a Mother who believes against the facts.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george