Word for the day by Christian Education Forum
Carmel MTC, Boston
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed
with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your
womb.
Christmas is the celebration of people going through intense emotions confronting diverse experience. May it be the pain of Mary or joy of the shepherds; the emotions are at its peak. Meeting of Elizabeth and Mary marks the most meaningful Christian fellowship of human history. It is this fellowship that equipped Mary to give birth to the son of God. The experience of a girl getting pregnant outside wedlock is considered the most wretched thing in any culture. No human brain can explain or comprehend Mary’s experience. No one would be able to understand her. It has never happened in history. Science fails to explain it. For her religion there is no other verdict but to stone her to death. So there is no one in her vicinity, who could understand and be with her. ‘No one to understand me’ is the most painful human predicament. It is this pain that made her run to that house in the hill country of Judea. ‘Will there be a person in the world with whom I can share my pain and who would accept me’ is the question in the mind of the young girl carrying the son of God in her womb whom the world may call fatherless.
Christmas is the celebration of people going through intense emotions confronting diverse experience. May it be the pain of Mary or joy of the shepherds; the emotions are at its peak. Meeting of Elizabeth and Mary marks the most meaningful Christian fellowship of human history. It is this fellowship that equipped Mary to give birth to the son of God. The experience of a girl getting pregnant outside wedlock is considered the most wretched thing in any culture. No human brain can explain or comprehend Mary’s experience. No one would be able to understand her. It has never happened in history. Science fails to explain it. For her religion there is no other verdict but to stone her to death. So there is no one in her vicinity, who could understand and be with her. ‘No one to understand me’ is the most painful human predicament. It is this pain that made her run to that house in the hill country of Judea. ‘Will there be a person in the world with whom I can share my pain and who would accept me’ is the question in the mind of the young girl carrying the son of God in her womb whom the world may call fatherless.
Her
questions are answered as she meets a person who could greet her as “Blessed
are you among women”. What elevates Elizabeth to the remarkable position in
history is her amazing resource of empathy, to see the blessedness in the
experience of Mary, which the world might pronounce as most shameful. How
empowering and marvelous would be the presence of such a person. It’s not the
high emotional quotient that equipped Elizabeth to have such a broad mind to
accept Mary, but the experience of Grace that she has gone through. She
has a similar experience of divine intervention that made humanly impossible
possible. The proper realization of the divine experience in her life is the
primary resource that equipped Elizabeth to realize the presence of the divine
in the life of others and call them ‘blessed’.
We
may come across people having diverse painful experiences, seeking an
understanding and accepting heart. It is the human tendency to judge them and
brand them. Let the sensitivity of the experience that we have gone through and
the divine intervention in them, open our minds to extend a hand with empathy.
Then we would be instrumental for the incarnation experience.
PRAYER
Lord, help us to see Your
presence in our painful experiences and make us worthy to extend the warmth of
empathy to those in distress. Amen
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” Mohsin Hamid
“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” Mohsin Hamid