Barrenness made Fertile by God's Power

In today’s first reading, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a, we are told the story of the angel’s announcing the birth of Samson, to a woman who has been barren. I pray, that like this woman, we, too, will not doubt God’s messengers in our lives. This woman did not bulk at God’s plan, though she had been barren throughout her marriage to Manoah.  She and her husband had tried over and over again, no doubt, to conceive children without success.  At God’s bidding her barrenness is removed. Her womb is made fertile.  The seemingly impossible is achievable.

We live in a world barren of faith in the Sacred, a world disrespectful of life, a world of barren wombs, violated wombs, wombs in which children have been slaughtered.  Nothing is impossible with God. God can transform our deserts into fertile ground or restore the Sacred in the profane, desecrated areas of this world.  Just as the wife of Manoah bore a son whom God blessed and in whom God’s Spirit stirred, so, too, will God  transform a spiritless, Godless world into a God-centered place where life, once again, is considered sacred and is used to give praise and glory to its Creator. 

And so we pray: O Root of Jesse’s stem, sign of God’s love for all his people: come to save us without delay (Gospel Acclamation for the 19^th of December)!