Daily Devotion – April 27, 2020 – Roy Hammerling
Luke 1:39-45 (46-66)
“. . . Blessed are you (Mary) among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
The Fruit of the Womb
Every generation has its own struggles. My parents were German refugees after WWII. My grandparents endured remarkable suffering during WWI as German living in Russia. Today, some of my students and friends are veterans of Vietnam or the Iraq wars. At times life can be so difficult, we can scarcely bear it. At some point or other sorrow slithers into our lives and when it does the faithful wonder, “Why?” Pain and/or sadness, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual gnaws at our hearts and eats away at us, threatening to devour us. In the midst of our world of woe comes a baby, the fruit of the womb of Mary, life itself. So wondrous is the gift that when Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth, the baby in her womb leaps for joy at their meeting. Mary herself cannot but have tremendous hope despite her awkward situation as a pregnant girl not yet married. When she knows of the blessing that is hers, she shouts, “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior . . . he has lifted up the lowly, . . . and filled the hungry with good things.” At last, it becomes clear: the pains of this life are not a prelude to the final agony of death but the birth pangs of eternal life. That life, however, does not start when we die, but has already begun to bear fruit in the present evil age. And when life is at its worst, there is the image of the pregnant Mary offering a battle cry to face the day, “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Yes, a Savior even for this day, amid our sorrow and agony, and especially amid our current troubles and strife. Indeed, “God lifts up the lowly and gives the hungry good things.” In these days, we all have different hungers – emotional, economic, and spiritual hungers and we all long for the fruit of the womb, which grants us that which sustains life.
Prayer: Grant, O Lord, that the agony of life not bring us to despair, but birth in us the hope of the dawn of heaven even today. Amen.
Prayer Concerns: Those who come quickest to mind because of their physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering.
