{"id":2168,"date":"2017-05-31T07:27:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T11:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=2168"},"modified":"2017-05-31T07:27:54","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T11:27:54","slug":"the-visitation-and-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-visitation-and-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Visitation and Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. \u00a0The gospel reading<\/a>\u00a0(Luke 1:39-56)\u00a0for today tells the story of Mary going to visit Elizabeth. \u00a0In this story there are four living people taking part in the story (Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband is also mentioned by name).<\/p>\n

The first of the four is, of course, Mary. \u00a0Mary has just experienced the Annunciation where the angel Gabriel has told her that she has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus, our Lord. \u00a0Mary accepts the gift of life in her womb. \u00a0She rejoices at this life. \u00a0The angel Gabriel also tells her that Elizabeth, her relative, is pregnant. \u00a0Mary goes to Elizabeth so that they can share their joy.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth is the second of the four we will discuss. \u00a0She has never had children and is now beyond the years for child-bearing. \u00a0She could have thought why now? \u00a0Today some medical people would say the pregnancy is too risky because of her age. \u00a0She could have said herself that she was to0 old to raise a child but her response is to embrace the gift of life in her womb (see Luke 1:25).<\/p>\n

The third person we will talk about is John the Baptist. \u00a0He is inside his mother’s womb. \u00a0When the angel Gabriel told Mary that Elizabeth was pregnant, he said, “this is the sixth month for her who was called barren.<\/em>” (Luke 1;36b) \u00a0Sixth month… that means 24 weeks. \u00a0In medical terms of today, that means John would be considered viable. \u00a0He would look like a human being with a head, body, arms, and legs with all the body parts there. \u00a0I take today’s reading as proof that he also had a soul at that point. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Inside his mother’s womb, he could not see Mary and certainly could not “see” in Mary’s womb yet he reacts to Jesus’ divine presence as he leaped in Elizabeth’s womb. \u00a0How could he have reacted to Jesus’ divinity if he (John) did not himself have a soul to perceive the divinity.<\/p>\n

That brings us to Jesus, the fourth living person in this story. \u00a0At this point, he would have just been conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb. \u00a0He would not have been considered “viable” by today’s medical standards but he was very much alive. \u00a0Both Elizabeth and John react to Jesus’ presence in Mary’s womb. \u00a0Elizabeth refers to Mary as the “mother of my Lord”\u00a0<\/em>(Luke 1:43) so she is aware, “filled with the Holy Spirit<\/em>” (Luke 1:41) that Jesus is present, \u00a0John the Baptist reacted by leaping in her womb. \u00a0Clearly Jesus is present in his divinity. \u00a0Does that not mean that he, in his humanity, has a soul at that point? \u00a0So the soul is present upon conception and we are alive.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. \u00a0The gospel reading\u00a0(Luke 1:39-56)\u00a0for today tells the story of Mary going to visit Elizabeth. \u00a0In this story there are four living people taking part in the story (Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband is also mentioned by name). The first of the four is, of …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Visitation and Life’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[298,297],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-yY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2169,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions\/2169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}