All stories are true, and some of them really happen! This is a saying I developed for speaking with people about narrative types of writing in our Scriptures. This Sunday we have a piece of Luke’s “infancy narrative,” the visit between the newly pregnant Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, also pregnant with Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist. When we place ourselves in the story, we can see lessons that speak to our lives. In Mary we see someone who responds generously to a need even though her own life has suddenly become dramatic and compelling. Hmm. Sometimes I resist acting generously because “it’s not a good time, please ask me later.” We who are women also notice in this story how important support from and solidarity with one another is during our lives, and how good it is to affirm one another, to rejoice with one another. Maybe this is the essential good news women have to offer the world! When we step out of the story and reflect on this passage as a narrative, instead of focusing on what may have happened, we focus instead on the purpose of the narrative. Luke is teaching his reader, through this story introduction (narrative) to the rest of the Gospel, who Jesus really is. Jesus is the Lord, a scriptural word indicating divinity. He is the fulfillment of the promises made to David, and the one who will establish the Kingdom. He is, in the words of Luke’s Christmas Scripture that we hear in two days, a savior born for you who is Christ the Lord.
– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia