Thursday, 21st DECEMBER St Peter Canisius, Doctor of the Church. Believed.

Thursday, 21st DECEMBER

St Peter Canisius, Doctor of the Church
Luke 1:39-45

Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."

"Blessed is she who believed." Mary had prophesied that many would call her blessed, and so it is. For centuries, millions of times a day, from all over the world, in all languages, people have called her blessed. How did she attract those blessings? The last blessing of Elizabeth in today's Gospel explains it: "Blessed is she who believed". Yes, Our Lady believed. She believed the Prophets, she believed her ancestors, she believed the Angel, but most of all, she believed God. The Incarnation happened because she believed. As a good daughter, she is blessed because she trusted her Father.

In the 1800s, an acrobat named Blondin became famous for crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope. One day a crowd gathered at the falls to see his most dangerous attempt yet. He planned to push an empty wheelbarrow across the tightrope. The slightest miscalculation could send him plunging to his death in the raging waters 160 feet below. Thousands watched breathlessly as he made his way to the other side, oblivious to the roar of the waters. The throng broke into cheers when his feet were firmly planted back on solid ground. He then challenged a reporter: 'Do you believe I can do anything on a tightrope?'

 'Oh yes, Mr Blondin' replied the reporter enthusiastically. 

'Do you believe', continued the acrobat, 'that I can do it with a full wheelbarrow?' 

'Sure you can!' answered the man with conviction, wanting to see it. 

'In that case', said Blondin, 'get into the wheelbarrow!'

Those who have faith, who trust God, have to prove it with deeds, as Mary did. Blessed are you, Mother, for you believed; blessed because you trusted God and got into the wheelbarrow. And I feel blessed also for being your child; I ask you to intercede for me that I may grow in faith.

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Commentary of the day :

Saint John Damascene (c.675-749), monk, theologian, Doctor of the Church
1st Sermon on the Dormition

"How does it happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

"Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb..." For all ages will call you blessed, as you said (Lk 1:48). The daughters of Jerusalem, that is to say, the Church, saw you and proclaimed your happiness... For you are the royal throne near which the angels stood contemplating their Master and Creator, who was seated on it (Dan 7:9). You have become the spiritual Eden, more sacred and more divine than the former one. The earthly Adam lived in the former; in you lives the Lord who came from heaven (1 Cor 15:47). 

Noah's ark was a prefiguration of you; it saved the seed of the second creation, for you gave birth to Christ, the world's salvation, who submerged sin and pacified the floods.

It was you whom the burning bush described ahead of time, whom the tables depicted, on which God wrote (Ex 31:18), which the ark of the covenant told about; it is you whom the golden urn, the candelabra... and Aaron's staff that blossomed (Num 17:23) obviously prefigured... 

I almost left out Jacob's ladder. Just as Jacob saw heaven united with the earth by means of the two ends of the ladder, and the angels descending and ascending on it, and as the one who is really the strong and invincible one engaged in a symbolic struggle with him, thus you yourself became the mediator and ladder by which God came down to us and took upon himself the weakness of our substance, embracing it and closely uniting it to him.

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