Canon Sean Gilligan, St Anne’s Parish writes

We know that Mary was the mother of Jesus and Joseph was the foster father. We have in the Gospel the account of the Angel coming to Mary. He told her that she was to be the mother of the promised Messiah. He also informed her that “the Lord was with her”.

Mary had plotted her life for the future and child bearing was excluded as she wished to keep her virginity for God. We see her unselfishness breaking through when she replied to the Angel and said “Let God’s word be done, that is the power of the Most High would overshadow her and she would conceive through the power of the Holy Spirit”.

Mary believed and immediately after, rather than planning for herself, she sets out on a four day journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was an old woman and was expecting John the Baptist. She stays with Elizabeth for three months to see her through her pregnancy with John the Baptist.

I think that our faith should be galvanised in the birth of Jesus because of the exchange of greetings between the two women when they met up. Elizabeth cries out “whence is this that the Mother of my God should come to visit me” and then John the Baptist we are told leaped with joy in his mother’s womb. Why? Because he sensed the presence of the Christ child in the womb of Mary. The response from Mary, “he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name and his mercy is from generation to generation . . .”

We are all born with a prior interest in ourselves. We have to work very hard at developing an unselfish interest in others. We can be really concerned about the people around us, our family, our parish, our community, our country, our world or we can withdraw like a squirrel, into the winter of our own lives, with an endless supply of nuts. Mary was not like that. She was a model of community concern.