“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Luke 1:42).
This verse is a very popular phrase that we always hear everywhere, either inside the Church, while riding in a vehicle, on the streets, or in marketplaces and shopping malls, because it is part of the “Hail Mary” prayer:
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
It is good to reflect on this “blessed” as we journey towards the end of the Christian season of Advent. Today is the last or Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 22), and the Gospel reading is taken from Luke, chapter 1, verses 39 to 45 (the visit of Mary to Elizabeth’s home in the hill country of Judea).
If we read the whole chapter, we can discover that Elizabeth, the aging wife of a priest, Zechariah, is six months pregnant (Luke 1:26, 36). This pregnancy was announced by the angel Gabriel to Zechariah while he was inside Jerusalem’s temple burning incense (Luke 1:9).
The role of Zechariah’s son was specifically explained by the angel Gabriel:
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:13-17).
Elizabeth had a relative living in Nazareth, Galilee, estimated to be 80 to 100 miles away from Jerusalem. She was Mary, “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David” (Luke 1:27). She was also informed by the angel Gabriel, who said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:30-33).
In Mary’s visit to pregnant Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-45), the phrase “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” was uttered by Elizabeth. The reason for Elizabeth’s words is explained: “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44).
It is clear that Mary was “blessed among women,” but it does not stop there. Elizabeth continued to say, “Blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Before going into the details of my reflection on the “blessed,” we will talk first about pregnancy. Mary was pregnant when she traveled to visit Elizabeth. Was she alone? The Bible does not record who her companion was, but she might have traveled alone.
This journey would not have been an easy one. Mary lived in Nazareth; Elizabeth lived in the hill country of Judea. It took several long days of travel. It would have been a difficult journey, but Mary had to leave Nazareth for a while because people would eventually discover that she was pregnant. The law of the Jews was strictly enforced: a woman who became pregnant while being betrothed to a man would be stoned to death. She needed a temporary sanctuary at Elizabeth’s home.
Mary was overwhelmed by this trip. She was a teenage girl at that time, living in her little town of Nazareth. She had been living a very ordinary life. After the angel Gabriel’s announcement, she had a lot to process.
Her relative might help her. An aging Elizabeth might understand her situation. Her visit to Elizabeth was a very important event. While on her way, Mary must have still been wondering what kind of reception Elizabeth would give her. Mary probably understood that not many people could relate to her experience with the angel Gabriel, who informed her of her miraculous conception. If anyone could understand, it might be Elizabeth. Still, she must have wondered how Elizabeth would react when Mary told her pregnancy story.
However, the moment Mary arrived, there was a wonderful scene. As she entered the house of Zechariah, she greeted Elizabeth. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41)
When Elizabeth saw Mary, her unborn child—John the Baptist—leaped, filled with joy. Though in the womb, John had a spiritual awareness and could respond to the Spirit of God. Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s greeting was motivated by the Holy Spirit.
Elizabeth wanted to encourage Mary’s faith, so she declared: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her” (Luke 1:45). Elizabeth believed that the baby in Mary’s womb was the Lord, whom Elizabeth’s son would prepare the way for (the mother of my Lord). This faith was in Elizabeth because she was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Elizabeth blessed Mary. Mary found someone who not only accepted her and opened her home to her but, more importantly, blessed her. That was all Mary truly needed. Mary was young. She was about to be married, but she was not yet. She had never planned to be pregnant before her wedding. She had not even talked to Joseph yet. So, Mary simply needed to be blessed. She needed to be accepted, loved, and blessed by a respected relative.
Eighty to one hundred miles on a donkey or on foot was a long journey. Throughout that journey, Mary went through a myriad of emotions until the final moment when she saw Elizabeth, heard her words, and felt the comfort of her embrace. Here is the human Mary.
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The gift of being blessed, the ways in which Mary was blessed, and the challenge to be a blessing to this world, to our society, to our neighbors, and to our family are very important to us.
But what does it mean to be blessed? How are we blessed? And how can we be a blessing?
Mary was called blessed because her child was blessed. Mary was united with a divine person, who is God overall.
The Bible begins with a blessing. In Genesis 1, the very first thing that God did after creating Adam and Eve was to bless them. God created them and then immediately blessed them.
All creatures were created by God to be blessed by Him. God created us to bless us. God loves us. God seeks a relationship with us, one built on love and filled with grace and mercy. There is nothing God desires more than to bless us. We were born to be blessed—all of us.
“Blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Jesus is God’s plan. That plan has a name, and His name is Jesus. Jesus was born into this broken world to remind us of God’s desire to bless us. Jesus spent His life in ministry doing blessings. He blessed those who had been forgotten: the poor, the hungry, those who were weeping, the hated, the cursed, the broken. He blessed them all. He was born to bless us. And He died to bless us. Even His very last act, before ascending into heaven, was to offer a blessing:
“Lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51).
Before Jesus even began His public ministry, He needed to receive this blessing. So, the Holy Spirit sent Him to the Jordan River, where He found His relative John, and He was baptized by John. And as He was coming up out of the water, He heard His heavenly Father say to Him, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). This blessing became the foundation of His life and ministry.
Though Mary was blessed, Jesus is more of a blessing to us. Jesus, as the Son of God, became human (John 3:16). Jesus was truly human, and as one of us, He is a blessing to us. As Jesus is the beloved Son of God, we are beloved children of God. How important it is, given this, to be reminded that we are God’s beloved, not because of what we do, but because of who we are. We were created to be blessed by God and to be loved by God—all of us.
To be blessed children of God doesn’t end there. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are loved to love. We are forgiven to forgive. That is our purpose, the purpose of all who know and believe that we are God’s beloved.
All of us are beloved children of God, and therefore no one should think that there are powerful persons over us but only God. Taking this premise, we are equal to each other. Being equal, there should be no lords, kings, or authorities that will dominate other people.
Because we are equal, we should start building a society of people who believe in equality or equal opportunity to live, work, and rest. But we cannot build an order of such a society without dismantling or overthrowing the old one. And this is a challenge to our task in raising awareness, organizing, and mobilizing people to participate in changing or transforming our decadent society.
Our broken society—so loved by God—desperately needs to be changed or transformed. This society needs to be blessed. To be a blessed society is to respond to the call of God to build a true and genuine society of people who respect, care for, and love one another.
Our society, in a way, is just like young Mary. This society shows up on our doorstep—alone, scared, confused, and desperate for nothing more than someone to simply open the door and offer a blessing. Just as Elizabeth did for Mary all those years ago.
Elizabeth didn’t change the society that day. She didn’t need to. All that she had to do was open her door and offer a blessing. God would do the rest.
And as Elizabeth said to Mary, in that tender scene from this beautiful Gospel reading, so we now say: Blessed are you who believe this. May God bless you as you live out your blessing until all of society knows and believes that they, too, are God’s beloved.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
