You have brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
you have filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
—Luke 1.52-53
Mary, peasant prophet, who changed history
without a man’s permission or patronage,
who married heaven and earth in your flesh,
Mary, Virgin Mother, Queen of Heaven,
whose submission is your throne:
you have seen the Righteous One’s opposites:
to make the human divine, to make earth into heaven,
to welcome the sovereign in a hovel, to make flesh holy.
You have seen the the salt of this sweet season:
to wrench our injustice:
not only to lift up the lowly but to pull the mighty down,
not just to feed the hungry but to empty the hands of the rich.
You have seen the paradox of God:
to reverse our own undoing,
to negate our negations, to disarm our powers.
You have seen the salvation of God:
to condemn our condemning.
Mary, open our eyes again
to the consuming fire hidden in the lily,
the beloved birth that is the ruin of our plans;
open our hearts to what it is the gift has come to destroy
and the danger in our consent.
May we conceive and bear such love.
Turn us, that it may be with us according to God’s word.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
December 12, 2019