Tenth Sunday after Trinity (Blessed Virgin Mary)
“for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;”
Summary
As you all know I have a special fondness for Mary, mother of our Lord. Not the perfect Mary so often depicted in Catholic iconography but the real, earthly Mary of the Orthodox Tradition in which she is presented as everywoman. Mary is not an idol, she is a role model. Our readings begin with the great cosmic battle between good and evil of Revelation 11:19-12:6,10. Here Mary is clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars yet she is also in agony and fleeing for her life. In the gospel, Luke 1:46-55, Mary is also fleeing: she is fleeing the shame, disgrace, punishment of being an unwed mother, of disappointing everyone. In both readings she finds shelter, a place to rest and reflect. And here she changes: once safe with her cousin Elizabeth (another woman who understands what it is like to be a disappointment and a disgrace) she is suddenly confident, powerful, able to see herself, not in eyes of her disapproving family and society, but in the eyes of God. She moves from despair to hope, from fear to freedom. She does this by accepting herself just as she is and honesty sharing all of herself with another. She grasps that this transformation is not just liberating for her but is liberating for all those who are cast down, ignored and oppressed. She role models for us the transforming possibilities of showing up, letting ourselves be seen (warts and all) and allowing God to use our suffering and our struggles to bring about change for us and those around us.
FIRST READING
Revelation 11:19-12:6,10
Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
‘Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,
for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before our God.
GOSPEL
Luke 1.46-55
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
