{"id":134,"date":"2009-08-20T15:42:36","date_gmt":"2009-08-20T15:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/?p=134"},"modified":"2024-05-05T23:14:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T04:14:48","slug":"august-21-august-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/2009\/08\/20\/august-21-august-28\/","title":{"rendered":"August 21 – August 28"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, August 21<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luke 1:39-45: Three considerations of the Mother of the Lord seem especially appropriate with respect to this reading:<\/p>\n

First, the Handmaid of the Lord. It is wise to begin our consideration of the Mother of Jesus by consulting her own words: \u201cMy soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior, for He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is God to Mary? She calls Him, \u201cmy Savior.\u201d Indeed, she is the first person in the New Testament speak of \u201cGod my Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary, then, is one of the redeemed. Her soul that magnifies the Lord is a soul purchased by the blood of the Lamb. Her spirit that rejoices in God her Savior is sanctified as every other Christian spirit is sanctified\u2014by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Mary\u2019s fundamental identity is handmaiden of the Lord. She is that before she is anything else. Her entire being was consecrated to the service of God, and she was consecrated by that service. This consecration included her very flesh, from which God\u2019s eternal word assumed our humanity in the mystery of the Incarnation.<\/p>\n

This is why the Church, from the very beginning, has recognized the fact of Mary\u2019s perpetual virginity. Her body was consecrated by the physical presence of God\u2019s Son, whom for nine months she bore and nurtured in her womb. That body and that womb belonged entirely to God by that prolonged consecration. <\/p>\n

For that reason her body could never belong to anyone else. Such is the mystery of the Incarnation. According to the constant, uninterrupted teaching of the Church, Mary remained a consecrated virgin her whole life long: \u201cEver Virgin.\u201d She remained a virgin for the same reason that we do not take the Eucharistic chalice and turn it into a beer stein. We do not take the Ark of the Covenant and turn it into clothes hamper.<\/p>\n

In the Bible holiness is a physical thing. A man could be struck dead merely for laying an unwarranted hand on the Ark of the Covenant. <\/p>\n

As the handmaiden of the Lord, therefore, Mary was totally consecrated to the service of God.<\/p>\n

Second, the Queen Mother. Here we have the testimony of her cousin Elizabeth: \u201cBut why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?\u201d This expression, \u201cmother of my Lord\u201d is also an essential feature of Mary\u2019s identity. She is not only the handmaiden of the Lord; she is also the mother of the king, the last of the kings of Judah.<\/p>\n

And what shall we say of the mothers of the kings of Judah? Holy Scripture obviously thinks them very important, because each of them is named in the Bible, a distinction that is given to no other royal line.<\/p>\n

How does the Bible regard the Queen Mother? We may compare two biblical texts, a comparison that throws great light on this question. The first is 1 Kings 1, where Bathsheba entered into the presence of King David, her husband. The text says, \u201cBathsheba prostrated herself and did homage to the king.\u201d Now let us contrast that text with the very next chapter of 1 Kings, which describes the entrance of Bathsheba into the presence of Solomon her son. The text says, \u201cBathsheba therefore went to King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king rose up to meet her and prostrated himself before her, and sat down on his throne and had a throne set for the king\u2019s mother; so she sat at his right hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where we find the Queen Mother in Psalm 45, enthroned at the right hand of the king. This is the position of Mary, to whom, St. Luke tells us, Jesus became subject. As in the kingdom of Judah, the Queen Mother is the second person in the Kingdom of heaven. If we assert less than this, we depart from the teaching of Holy Scripture. In the Bible the mother of the king of Judah is worthy of all respect and honor. In the case of Mary, in fact, all generations will call her blessed, and this is the blessing we hear already in the words of Elizabeth: \u201cBlessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! . . . Blessed is she who believed.\u201d <\/p>\n

And what causes Elizabeth to call her blessed? Look closely at the Sacred Text: \u201cwhen Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, \u2018Blessed art thou among women.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When we address Mary, then, and cry out, like Elizabeth, with a loud voice, \u201cBlessed art thou among women,\u201d these words are put on our lips by the Holy Spirit. We call Mary blessed for the same reason we call Jesus Lord \u2014 because this is what the Holy Spirit prompts us to say. Indeed, we can only do this by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who would not have us honor Mary one whit less than Solomon honored Bathsheba.<\/p>\n

Third, Mary\u2019s vocation is that of the Bible itself. This is a very ancient insight of the Church. We still sing a Byzantine hymn of the 4th century in which she is addressed as \u201cthe sacred page on which the Father wrote with His own hand.\u201d God caused His Word to be written, not only on the skins of sheep, but in the very flesh of the woman who in faith consented to become His mother. Luke twice tells us that she took all these things and pondered them in her heart. Mary so completely embodied God\u2019s Holy Word as to give flesh to that Word.<\/p>\n

Thus, all the mysteries of Holy Scripture come to a certain perfection in her own life and being. When she answered yes to God, she fulfilled the faith of Abraham, receiving in her very flesh the promise that was made to Abraham. She became the burning bush of God\u2019s presence. She became the ladder of Jacob by which God descended to this earth. She became the Ark of the Covenant, before which the infant John danced like David. She so embodied the mysteries of Holy Scripture that Holy Scripture was fulfilled in her own flesh. She assumed into her own being all the law and all the prophets. The Father inscribed His word in her flesh.<\/p>\n

Saturday, August 22<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psalm 104: The liturgical tradition of the Church understandably links this psalm to the evening. Indeed, in the Christian East, it is recited at Vespers each day, year round.<\/p>\n

Though prayed in the lengthening shadows of evening, Vespers itself has always been thought of rather as an hour of light than of darkness, a perspective inspired both by the special quality of the gloaming and sunset and by the ritual lighting of the candles. This note of vesperal light is obvious in the traditional hymnody of both the East and the West. One thinks, for instance, of the ancient vesperal hymns Phos Hilaron<\/em> (\u201cO Gladsome Light\u201d) in the East and Lucis Creator Optime<\/em> (\u201cMost Good Creator of the Light\u201d) in the West. An early line of our psalm strengthens the same impression: \u201cYou are clothed in praise and majesty, adorning Yourself in a garment of light.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psalm 104 (Greek and Latin 103) is likewise one of those psalms for which the New Testament provides at least a partial interpretive key. An early verse of it is quoted in Hebrews with respect to the angels: \u201cWho makes His angels spirits, \/ And His ministers a flame of fire\u201d (1:7). This line of the Psalter is interpreted just a few verses later: \u201cAre they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?\u201d (1:14).<\/p>\n

Psalm 104 is not difficult. Indeed, the flow of its poetry has made it a favorite. The psalmist meditates on the various \u201cdays\u201d of Creation, starting with the vast expanse of the heavens, then the ministry of the angels, then the earth and its myriad phenomena, the various plants and diverse animals, from sparrows and rabbits to deer and lions, and not excluding man, always with an emphasis on God\u2019s generous provision for the needs of all: \u201cExpectantly do all things look to You, to give them their food in due season. You give, and they gather in. When You open Your hand, all things are filled with goodness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psalm 104 combines considerations of the natural order with those
\nof human commerce, suggesting a \u201ccooperation\u201d between God\u2019s work and man\u2019s. This perspective is true with regard to both the land (\u201cYou make grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man\u2014to make bread spring from the earth, and wine to gladden his heart, and oil to shine on his face, and bread to strengthen his heart\u201d) and the sea (\u201cHere is the sea, great and wide, holding creatures without number, living things both great and small. Here too go the ships to and fro, and the great sea serpent that frolics therein\u201d). Man\u2019s own labor is matched by that of other creatures in nature, such as the hunting of the lions and the nest-building of the birds.<\/p>\n

Toward the end our psalm speaks of God\u2019s Holy Spirit at work in the world: \u201cYou will send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You will renew the face of the earth.\u201d Perhaps inspired by this psalm, the poet G. M. Hopkins saw the sun\u2019s daily rising as a sign that \u201cthe Holy Ghost over the bent \/ World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.\u201d <\/p>\n

His older contemporary, J. H. Newman, especially liked the line about man going \u201cforth to his work, and to his labor until the evening.\u201d This was the text of his very first sermon, and it later became also the text for his last sermon as an Anglican, \u201cThe Parting of Friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday, August 23<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acts 27:1-12: Paul\u2019s journey to and arrival at Rome, which fill the two final chapters of the book, form the climax to which the literary tension of the Acts of the Apostles has been building. It is in this journey that Acts most strikingly reminds the reader of the Aeneid<\/em> of Vergil. Likewise, Luke\u2019s inclusion of so many nautical details obliges us to slow down and savor the significance of the story. He does not deprive us of a single dram of the drama.<\/p>\n

Paul and his companions boarded a ship whose homeport was Adramyttium (Acts 27:2). Since this prominent port city (cf. Plutarch, Cicero<\/em> 4; Herodotus, 7.42; Strabo, 13.613\u2013614), the modern Edremit, lay just south of Troy, Luke\u2019s inclusion of the detail may be significant. Leaving Phoenicia, the ship cruised along the east and north sides of Cyprus, against strong head winds (27:4), and then turned north to Asia Minor. The vessel was obviously returning to its home port. At the city of Myra, on the south coast of Asia Minor, Paul\u2019s company changed to an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy; it was perhaps a grain ship, so many of which brought wheat from Egypt to Rome. Still fighting contrary winds, they made their way to Salmone on the northeastern tip of Crete, a port well known to ancient navigators (cf. Strabo, Geography 10.3.20; Pliny, Natural History<\/em> 4.58.71).<\/p>\n

The \u201cFair Havens\u201d they then reached on the south coast of Crete (Acts 27:8) is still known by that name in Greek, Kali Limenes. In the next verse Luke informs us that the Feast of the Atonement, or Yom Kippur<\/em>, had already passed. If, as we are justified in suspecting, this was the year 59, then the Day of Atonement was October 5. That is to say, they were approaching the winter season when sailing on the Mediterranean was considered unsafe. Phoenix, where they hoped to winter, lay some forty miles further west on the south side of Crete (27:12).<\/p>\n

Monday, August 24<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acts 27:13-29: When a light wind began to blow westward, the ship\u2019s crew decided it was just what was needed to take the ship to Phoenix. Weighing anchor, they determined to risk it, endeavoring to hug the south coast of Crete. Not long after commencing this maneuver, however, the ship was hit by a \u201ctyphoon wind\u201d (anemos typhonikos<\/em>), a nor\u2019easter blowing down from over Crete and sending the ship out to sea in a southwesterly direction. There was nothing to do but let her ride the storm. With no way to see either stars or moon, navigation became impossible, and soon they had no idea where they were or even in which direction they were headed. With no sunlight, the most basic sense of direction was lost (27:20). That is to say, the journey was no longer under human control. God would take the ship where he wanted it to go.<\/p>\n

Presently, some twenty-seven miles due south of Phoenix, the very port the crew had hoped to reach before the storm came, Paul\u2019s ship ran under the lee of the island of Cauda (cf. Pliny, Natural History<\/em> 4.12), the modern Gozzo. A brief relief from the storm, as the ship sat below Cauda (Acts 27:16), enabled the sailors to undergird the hull with cables, to make the vessel\u2019s planking tighter against the waves. To impede the ship\u2019s wild movement in the storm, a kedge anchor was dropped (the correct meaning, I believe, of chalasantes to skevos<\/em>), because the craft had been drifting south so fast that the crew feared running onto the reef shoals of the Libyan coast at Syrtis.<\/p>\n

The shoals of Syrtis, west of Cyrene, to which Luke refers in Acts 27:17, consisted of two shallow bays, now known as the Gulf of Sidra and the Gulf of Cabes. \u201cSyrtis,\u201d a name meaning \u201csandbank\u201d and related to the Greek verb syro<\/em>, \u201cto drag,\u201d was a place frightful to mariners, who tried their best to avoid those shallows with their hidden rocks and their sands ever shifting in the tides and waves (Pliny, Natural History 5.4.27; Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 5.8\u201311). This was that \u201cSyrtis, terrifying to whoever hears of it\u201d (Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War 2.381).<\/p>\n

This place was the same \u201cunfriendly Syrtis\u201d (inhospita Syrtis<\/em>) that \u201cconfined\u201d (cingunt<\/em>) Carthage (Aeneid<\/em> 4.41). It was at Syrtis that Aeneas\u2019s ships ran aground (1.111,146; cf. 10.678), and, when he finally left Carthage, he carefully avoided sailing that way (5.51; 6.60; 7.302). (It did not bother Vergil\u2019s purposes, obviously, that Syrtis lay much too far east to provide a landing for Carthage, nor should it, I suggest, bother us.)<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s ship did not drift down to Syrtis, evidently because the wind shifted and drove it into what Luke identifies as the Adriatic Sea (Acts 27:27). This navigator\u2019s calculation was surely made afterwards, however, because at the time no one on board had more than a guess where they might be. The ancients thought of the Adriatic as extending southward to include the waters between Crete and Sicily (Ptolemy, Geography<\/em> 3.4.1; 17.1; Strabo, 2.123). Fierce storms were common there (Horace, Odes<\/em> 1.33.15; 2.14.14; 3.3.5; 3.9.23).<\/p>\n

Tuesday, August 25<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acts 27:30-44: Two years or so after St. Paul\u2019s harrowing experience on the Adriatic, Flavius Josephus traveled to Rome on another ship that foundered in those very waters. His description is worth quoting at length:<\/p>\n

I arrived at Rome, after much peril at sea. When our ship sank in the middle of the Adriatic, some of us, around six hundred in number, swam through the whole night, and about daybreak, by God\u2019s providence, there appeared a ship of Cyrene. Myself and some others, about eighty all together, outstripped the others and were taken aboard (Vita<\/em> 15).<\/p>\n

Josephus went on to describe this ship\u2019s landing at Puteoli, which the Italians, he noted, called Dicaearchia (Vita<\/em> 16). This was the same port, on the Gulf of Naples, at which Paul had disembarked the previous year or so (Acts 28:13).<\/p>\n

One is also struck, however, by a big difference between the descriptions that Josephus and Luke give us of their shipwrecks in the Adriatic. That of Josephus is very short and sparse in particulars, while Luke\u2019s description is lengthy, dramatic, and very detailed. For Josephus, the shipwreck was an event; it happened and it was over. Luke\u2019s shipwreck, however, was part of a larger epic, a historical saga of great significance. Therefore he takes particular care in his description of this experience that he shared with Paul. As for Paul himself, he was no stranger to shipwreck. Indeed, prior to the incident so minutely described by Luke, Paul had already been shipwrecked
\non three different occasions, during one of which he had spent a night and a day clinging to some spar or other piece of ship\u2019s rigging to stay afloat (2 Corinthians 11:25). Luke recorded none of those earlier disasters, though we suspect he knew of them. If he takes such care in his description of Paul\u2019s shipwreck at Malta, then, he must see in it a special significance.<\/p>\n

Luke tells us that their ship drifted for 14 days before crashing onto the rocks (27:41). This chronological detail renders improbable, I think, the KJV\u2019s translation of diapheromenon<\/em> as \u201cdriven up and down\u201d (27:27). Luke\u2019s expression is better translated as \u201ctossed around,\u201d because several changes of wind and current, of the sort suggested by the KJV translation, would make it unlikely for the ship to have reached Malta in just two weeks. It is more reasonable, surely, to think of a more or less steady drift westwards averaging maybe a knot or two each hour, or roughly 36 miles a day. This estimate would better account for the 480 or so miles between Cauda and Malta. Indeed, it works out to almost exactly thirteen and a half days, a calculation that brings us to the night before the shipwreck, when they \u201cdropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come\u201d (27:29).<\/p>\n

Wednesday, August 26<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joshua 22: After wandering in the Sinai and Negev deserts for most of a generation, the people of Israel had now arrived at a place called Shittim, just east of the Jordan River and only about ten miles from Jericho. Then came a new crisis.<\/p>\n

It was a moral crisis, involving some Israelite men of slack discipline with certain Moabite women of relaxed virtue. Fornication was the problem, that term understood both literally and in the figurative sense of their falling prey to the idolatrous worship of the Moabite god, Baal of Peor (Numbers 25:1-3).<\/p>\n

The seduction of these Israelites, moreover, was not a mere boy-meets-girl happenstance. It resulted, rather, from a deliberate machination on the part of the Moabites, plotting to weaken the military resolve and moral will of the Israelites. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the scheme had been concocted in the mind of the religious philosopher Balaam, who was at that time in the service of the Moabite king (cf. Revelation 2:14).<\/p>\n

Seeing it happen, the young priest Phineas discerned the peril of the hour, for an earlier experience had taught him the hazards of moral compromise. If he was sure of anything at all, Phineas was certain that God\u2019s punishment of sin was invariably decisive and might very well be swift. <\/p>\n

Phineas had been hardly more than a child when he saw the divine retribution visited on two of his priestly uncles, Nadab and Abihu, for a single offense in the service of God. Nor had those been insignificant men who were thus punished. On the contrary, Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron and his heirs in the priesthood, were men of stature and respect among the people. They had accompanied Moses, their very uncle, as he began his climb of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:1), and had partly shared in his vision of the divine glory (24:9-10). Nonetheless, Nadab and Abihu had been instantly struck dead, devoured by a fire from the divine presence for just one moral lapse (Leviticus 10:1-3). The memory of that swift retribution had seared itself into the memory of young Phineas. He knew by experience that Israel\u2019s Lord was a morally serious God, not some feather of a deity to be brushed away at one\u2019s convenience.<\/p>\n

At the time of the Moabite crisis, then, the reaction of Phineas was utterly decisive and equally swift. Responding to the Lord\u2019s decree to punish the offenders (Numbers 25:4-6), he resolutely took the matter in hand and thus put an end to the divine wrath already plaguing the people (25:7-15). For his part in averting the evil, Phineas came to enjoy great respect in Israel. Not long afterwards, for instance, he was the priest chosen to accompany the army advancing against the Midianites (Numbers 31:6). After the Conquest, Phineas inherited land among the Ephraemites (cf. Joshua 24:33) and continued to be consulted by Israel, especially in times of crisis (cf. Judges 20:28). He would be remembered throughout the rest of biblical history, furthermore, as the very model of zeal in God\u2019s service (cf. Psalms 105 [106]:30; 1 Chronicles 9:20; Sirach 45:23).<\/p>\n

If we knew only of Phineas's decisive action at the time of the Moabite trouble, it might be easy to think of him solely as an energetic, resolute, executive sort of man, but this would be an incomplete perspective. Phineas was also a thoughtful person, able to consider a delicate question in its fully nuanced complexities. <\/p>\n

This latter trait of his character was revealed in the crisis later created by the construction of an altar to the east of the Jordan River by the Israelites who lived in that region (Joshua 22:10). Regarded as a rival altar outside of the strict confines of the Holy Land, this construction proved so provocative to the rest of Israel that there arose the real danger of civil war (22:12). Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the decision was made to establish an eleven-member committee of inquiry to investigate the matter. Phineas was the head of that committee (22:13-14).<\/p>\n

Probing into the construction of that altar, Phineas\u2019s committee concluded that it was not intended to be used as such, but would serve merely as a monument to remind all the Israelites of their solidarity in the worship of their one God. Civil war was thus averted, and Phineas, once so swift unto bloodshed, was thus in large measure responsible for preventing it (22:21-34).<\/p>\n

Thursday, August 27<\/p>\n

Acts 28: 17-31: Because the events at Caesarea the previous autumn, culminating in Paul\u2019s appeal to a higher court at Rome, had transpired so late in the year, precariously close to the winter, when sea travel and communication were no longer undertaken, no one in Rome had learned of those distant events. The Jews in Rome gained their first information on the matter three days after Paul\u2019s arrival in the city (28:21).<\/p>\n

He invited their local Jewish leaders to meet at his lodging, where he was under house arrest (28:16\u201317). It is significant to Luke\u2019s literary and theological purpose to record Paul\u2019s last rejection by the Jews\u2014the last of so many that he has recounted\u2014in that very city which is the capital of the Gentile world, the city towards which the dynamism of this narrative has been directed. Paul was at last in the capital of the Roman Empire, the city so closely tied to his and Peter\u2019s destinies. It is precisely in Rome that Paul declares to the unbelieving Jews that \u201cthis salvation has been sent to the Gentiles\u201d (28:28).<\/p>\n

Here the story ends, not because Luke had run out of things to tell, but because he has now reached the geographical and thematic goal toward which his entire account has been moving. The movement from Jerusalem to Rome served for Luke as a symbol of the internationalizing of the gospel, bringing God\u2019s message of salvation to the political center of universal human concern.<\/p>\n

Friday, August 28<\/strong><\/p>\n

Psalm 22: Of all the psalms, Psalm 22 (Greek and Latin 21) is par excellence<\/em> the canticle of the Lord\u2019s suffering and death. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus is described as praying the opening line of this psalm as He hangs on the Cross: \u201cMy God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?\u201d (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34). In Luke, on the other hand, the last recorded words of Jesus on the Cross are a line from Psalm 31 (Greek and Latin 30): \u201cInto Your hands I commit My spirit\u201d (23:46). From a juxtaposition of these two texts there arose in Christian sentiment the popular story that Jesus, while He hung on the Cross, silently recited all the lines of the Psalter that lie between these two verses.<\/p>\n

Whatever is to be said of that story, there is no doubt about the importance of Psalm 22 in reference to the Lord\u2019s suffering and death. Not only did Jesus pray this psalm\u2019s opening lin
\ne on His gibbet of pain; other lines of it are also interpreted by the Church, even by the Evangelists themselves, as prophetic references to details in the drama of Holy Friday.<\/p>\n

Consider, for instance, this verse of Psalm 22: \u201cAll who gazed at Me derided Me. With their lips they spoke and wagged their heads: \u2018He hoped on the Lord. Let Him deliver him. Let Him save him, since He approves of him.\u2019\u201d One can hardly read this verse without recalling what is described in Matthew: \u201cAnd those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, . . . \u2018If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.\u2019 Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, . . . \u2018He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him\u2019\u201d (27:39\u201343).<\/p>\n

The Gospels likewise tell of the soldiers dividing the garments of Jesus at the time of His Crucifixion. St. John\u2019s description of this event is worth considering at length, because he actually quotes our psalm verbatim as a fulfilled prophecy:
\nThen the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also His tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, \u201dLet us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,\u201c that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: \u2018They divided My garments among them, \/ And for My clothing they cast lots\u2019\u201d (19:23, 24).
\nMoreover, if Holy Church thinks of the Lord Himself as praying this psalm on the Cross, such an interpretation is amply justified by a later verse that says: \u201cLike a potsherd has my strength been scorched, and my tongue cleaved to my palate.\u201d Hardly can the Church read this line without calling to mind the Lord who said from the Cross: \u201cI thirst\u201d (John 19:28).<\/p>\n

And as she thinks of the nails supporting the Lord\u2019s body on the tree of redemption, the Church recognizes the voice that speaks yet another line of our psalm: \u201cThey have pierced my hands and feet; they have numbered all my bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, according to St. John, at the foot of the Cross stood the Mother of the Lord, a loyal disciple to the last, her soul transfixed by the sword that aged Simeon prophesied in the temple when she first presented the Child to God. To her the Lord Himself now makes reference in this psalm. Speaking of that consecration, Jesus says to His heavenly Father of his earthly mother, \u201cYou were He that drew me from the womb, ever my hope from my mother\u2019s breasts. To You was I handed over from the womb. From the belly of my mother, You are my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside of the Gospels, the New Testament\u2019s most vivid references to the Lord\u2019s Passion are arguably those in Hebrews, which speaks of the Lord\u2019s sharing our flesh and blood so that \u201cthrough death He might destroy him who had the power of death\u201d (2:14). Quoting Psalm 22 in this context of the Passion, this author tells us that Jesus \u201cis not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: \u2018I will declare Your name to My brethren; \/ In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You\u2019\u201d (2:11, 12).<\/p>\n

Finally, just as each of the Lord\u2019s three predictions of the Passion ends with a prediction of the Resurrection (cf. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34), this psalm of the Passion appropriately finishes with the voice of victory and the growth of the Church: \u201cMy spirit lives for Him; my seed will serve Him. The coming generation shall be herald for the Lord, declaring His righteousness to a people yet unborn, whom the Lord created.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, August 21 Luke 1:39-45: Three considerations of the Mother of the Lord seem especially appropriate with respect to this reading: First, the Handmaid of the Lord. It is wise to begin our consideration of the Mother of Jesus by consulting her own words: \u201cMy soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced … Continue reading August 21 – August 28<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2361,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/daily_reflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}