'TWO WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN'

Bishop Kevin Doran, Homily at Grotto in Lourdes

In our Gospel reading this morning, Saint Luke paints a pen picture of the encounter of Mary and Elizabeth at Ain Karim.  The image I have is of two women, each one unexpectedly expecting a baby, embracing joyfully, and sharing their gladness at what God has done in them.  They have each been entrusted with a mission, and that mission centres around giving birth to a child.

For Elizabeth, this pregnancy puts an end to the sadness she has known because, in spite of her long and faithful marriage with Zechariah, she has not been blessed with children.  For Mary, a much younger woman, there is the uncertainty of an unplanned pregnancy, alongside her faith in the promise of God and the fidelity of Joseph who has stood by her.

But, the secret that Mary and Elizabeth share, and which is revealed to us in the Gospel, is that there is a deeper meaning to each of these pregnancies.  Mary’s child is the Word made flesh, the Saviour of the world.  Elizabeth’s child will prepare the way for him and in the words of Zechariah his father, “will make known to his people their salvation, through the forgiveness of all their sins”.

I think it will be helpful if we reflect a little more on what is going on in the lives of these two women and their children. 

The theme of our pilgrimage this year is “Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you”.  These are the words of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, on the occasion of the Annunciation.  “Grace” means the “free gift of God”.  Mary is literally pregnant with God’s gift.  Somehow this has been revealed to Elizabeth, whose own greeting in today’s Gospel, reflects the words of the Angel Gabriel. “Of all women, you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”. Mary’s response is inspired by the Holy Spirit, who came upon her at the time of the Annunciation and helped her to make sense of what was going on in her life.  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord”, she says, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, … the almighty has done great things for me”.

Mary knows that something very special is happening in her life, and that future generations will call her blessed, but she is not interested in promoting herself.  There is no suggestion that she is any better than Elizabeth.  She gives all the credit to God “because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid”. 

The Almighty is, of course, at work in the life of each one of us.  Perhaps we might pause at some time today, and repeat the prayer of Mary, making it our own.  It is a holy and a wholesome thing to acknowledge our gifts and blessings, and to give the glory to God.

Many of you are mothers, whether your children are still young, or already adults.  Some of you may, sadly have lost a child.  I want you to listen again to the words of Elizabeth.  “Blessed is the fruit of your womb!”.  There is, of course, something quite unique about the fruit of Mary’s womb.  But the fruit of your womb is also blessed.  The child that you conceived was intended and loved by God, before you even knew you were pregnant.  On the day that he began his mission as Pope, Benedict XVI said: “We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.  Each of us is the result of a thought of God.  Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”

It is not always easy to see the plan of God in the lives of our children.  I am reminded of Saint Monica, whose feast we celebrated a few days ago.  She had a rough time with Augustine, but she never gave up on him, and she never stopped praying for him, because she believed that God had a plan for him.  I encourage each of you to follow her example. “Blessed is the fruit of your womb”.  I invite you to consider, for a moment, that over ten thousand babies were aborted in Ireland in 2025.  Many of them would not have been as old as John the Baptist on the day of the Visitation, but remember, that Jesus, in His mother’s womb, was six months younger.  He was well within the twelve-week age bracket, just like ninety five percent of the babies aborted every year in Ireland.  Each one of those babies is the blessed fruit of a mother’s womb.  Most of them were unexpectedly expected, just as Jesus was.  We don’t know why their mothers made the decisions they made and, in a way, that is not for us to judge.

I would put it to you, however, that there is something fundamentally disordered about a society and a legal system that not only allows, but promotes and pays for the killing of so many babies.  But where is the support for women that would help them to choose a life-giving alternative?  Our doctors and nurses have come under enormous social pressure to commit abortion, and we can be grateful that so many of them have refused to do so.

In the final analysis, it is not just about the babies, who will always be held in the hand of God.  It is also about the spiritual and emotional harm that abortion does to their mothers, and about the moral decline of a society which voted for this and allows it to continue.  It will continue, unless we stop it.  That calls for prayer, for political action, for outreach in our own communities and for a willingness on the part of all of us to speak the truth.

These days, when I think of Mary’s journey through the hill country of Judah, I find myself thinking of what it must be like these days to undertake any kind of a journey across that territory.  I think of the missiles, bombs and bullets, launched at innocent children and their equally innocent parents in so many places.  Are they not also the blessed fruit of a mother’s womb?  So too are the teenagers and young adults who are being sucked every day into the destructive cycle of addiction, debt, and violence by drug dealers who live in our own towns and villages.

The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights.  Respect for the dignity of human life is both liberal and conservative, in the true sense of those words.  It is neither “left” nor “right”.  It calls for a consistent ethic across the whole spectrum of our lives.

Our society, dear brothers and sisters, is in urgent need of a real conversion of heart.  I think most of you know this.  I am not saying it either to make you feel guilty, or to undermine your hope in the goodness of God.  Neither do I think for a moment that any one of us can save the world.  There is only one Saviour, Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary.  But he does ask us, as his disciples, to share in his mission.

It is to Him and to His Spirit that we must turn to for wisdom and courage to work together for the small changes, that will eventually bring the bigger changes that we need in our world and in our Irish society.

ENDS