The infant in my womb leaped for joy

SATURDAY 21 DECEMBER (Lk 1,39-45)

Whatever a human mind could have imagined happened in Mary, in the Virgin of Nazareth: The Word became flesh. God really became a man. The Only Son of the Father has assumed our humanity. Starting with Lucifer in eternity, passing through the first woman and the first man, reaching the present day, a third of angels and many men have decided, they decide to make themselves Gods. In truth they are only angels and only men. Instead, in Mary, it is God who became true man. What happened in her might never happen again. It hasn’t happened before. It will never happen again forever. Only one is the Son of God who became true man, true flesh. But there is another very singular thing that was accomplished in Mary, preceding and anticipating what would have happened starting from the day of Easter or Pentecost, depending on whether reference is made to the Gospel according to John or to the Acts of the Apostles. What is this very singular thing? Mary is filled with the Holy Spirit. She is moved, urged to go immediately to Zechariah’s house by the Spirit. In this house, for her, for her breath, her voice or vital breath, the Holy Spirit has alighted on Elizabeth. This immediately, illuminated by the Spirit of the Lord, saw all the mystery that was fulfilled in Mary. Moreover, the Holy Spirit has settled on the child carried in his lap, filling him with himself.

For Mary the word spoken by the Angel Gabriel to Zacharias in the temple was realized: “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb”. We know that in the Old Testament it was always the Lord who gave the Holy Spirit. Never has he passed from one man to another man. This transition from man to man did not occur even with Moses. On the seventy elders it was the Lord who took part of the Spirit that was on Moses and put him on those who had been chosen to govern the Lord’s people with him. Thus, Mary becomes a true image of the Church. After his glorious resurrection Jesus will breathe his Spirit on the Apostles and from these the Spirit will be breathed on every other man who will be converted to their Word, always announced to them in the Holy Spirit and through the Holy Spirit which is in it; they will be converted and welcome Christ as the one and only source of eternal life. If the Apostles are not full of the Holy Spirit, like the Virgin Mary, like Christ Jesus, they will have a sterile breath that will never produce a single fruit of salvation. They might also give the Holy Spirit through the celebration of the sacraments, but this Spirit, without having been preceded by the Spirit of the Word, Spirit of conversion and attraction of the hearts to Christ the Lord, will produce very few fruits. The sterility of the Christian life is in the littleness of the Holy Spirit.

During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Every man has contact with the breath of the Holy Spirit, which is in the Apostle of the Lord and in those who announce the Word, he must make the same profession of faith as the two disciples of Emmaus: “Did not perhaps our hearts burn within us while he conversed with us along the way, when he explained the Scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32). If the disciple of Jesus speaks and the heart of the listener does not burn and is not ablaze with the Holy Spirit, it is a sign that the one who announces is without Him. His heart does not burn. Not even the heart of the listener might ever burn. What happened in the house of Zechariah must happen every day in the house of the world. Moved by the Spirit, the Christian enters this house, greets with a greeting full of the Holy Spirit, the light of God enters the heart and ignites it. We accept the mystery, we adhere to Christ. We let ourselves be renewed by his grace and truth and we become new creatures. All this happens because the breath is rich in the Holy Spirit, light, truth and conviction. A heart devoid of the Holy Spirit can only sow darkness and gloom.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that every disciple of Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit.