Mary Did Her Part (III)

There is very little unusual about the outward life of the Blessed Virgin, or at least the Gospels do not record it. They show her life as very simple and ordinary. What she did and endured might have been done and endured by anyone in her station of life. She visited her cousin Elizabeth just as her other relatives did. Like all her neighbors, she went to Bethlehem to be registered. Because she was poor she sheltered in a stable. The persecution of Herod drove her from Nazareth, but she returned and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, who worked to earn their daily bread. But what was the bread that nourished the faith of Mary and Joseph? It was the sacrament of the moment. But what did they experience beneath an existence apparently filled with nothing but humdrum happenings? On the surface it was similar to that of everyone around them, but faith, piercing the superficialities, disclosed that God was accomplishing very great things. O bread of the angels, heavenly manna, pearl of the Gospels, sacrament of the present moment! You give God under such lowly forms as the stable, the manger, the hay and the straw. But to whom do you give Him? “He has filled the starving with good things” (Lk 1:53). God reveals Himself to the humble in the lowliest of disguises, but the proud, who never look below the surface, fail to find Him even in His greatest manifestations.