Midwives ‘stand with’ women who are with child. Midwives guide women in bringing beautiful new life to birth. Elizabeth acts as a midwife to Mary of Nazareth. She guides her young cousin most especially in a spiritual way. One example is by Elizabeth receiving Mary and her baby with great joy. Mary, as any young mother, has a myriad of feelings welling within her. Young mothers can feel joyful, and also anxious, grateful, irritable, hopeful, sad, inspired, and tired unto exhausted. Will we, amidst any of these fluctuations, worse, amidst the diminishment and discrimination targeting mothers and emerging life, be like Elizabeth? Will we receive mothers and their growing children with great joy? If we are tempted to receive mothers and their babies in any diminished manner, it is evidence of the influence of Militarism on our lives. Militarism crafts a culture in which pregnant women are routinely and roundly diminished and, more so, discriminated against. They are made to feel a burden, a prisoner, a fool for their condition. Women in this military empire are, like all citizens to varying degrees, increasingly trained to be soldiers; to dominate lessers, to attack enemies, and to violate life, even the life growing within them. To be receptive, vulnerable, and nurturing with growing life is, in this U.S. military empire, to be a radical, a revolutionary. It is to be Mary and Elizabeth. They were, in the military empire of their time, also radicals, also revolutionaries. All mothers are, for they are courageously willing to give birth agonizingly aware of the danger that awaits their beloved. Women across the world have the courage to bring forth new life in Bethlehem and Juarez and Pine Ridge, in Gaza and Bangladesh and Darfur. Mothers and babies need us to have the courage to ‘stand with’ them, both, and support them, both, during both the pregnancy and far beyond. We need not support one over the other or one instead of the other. Both mother and baby need our personal support; support that is emotional, hospitable, prayerful. Both mother and baby need our social support; support that is political, economic, legal, healthy, spiritual. Will we give them that support? Will we stand with both mother and baby and en-courage them to venture forth into the world and radically change it? Each of us can be among the midwives of history. We can stand with women who are pregnant with new life and dispel the worries, the fears, and the dangers as well as the domination, the cruelty, and the violence. Like Elizabeth, we can stand with mother and baby and welcome them both with joy.
Prayer: Spirt, fill my heart with joy at the touch of new life.
Question: What is my spirituality out of which new life can be born?
December 19, 2021 Gospel Luke 1:39-45 Fourth Sunday of Advent