God's Makes Haste to Find Us

Today’s readings are from Song of Songs 2: 8-14 and Lk 1: 39-45.  Song of Songs reminds us that God is our Lover, our Beloved.  He comes to save us from sin and selfishness. He comes with haste. As Mary hurried to visit her cousin Elizabeth, so does  God hurry to visit us.  He comes “springing across the mountains” (Song of Songs 2: 8) that we use to block others from getting close to us, ourselves from getting close to ourselves and to the truth within us.  Those mountains and hills are not mountains and hills to the Lord. God levels them, making His way to our hearts, our thoughts, our anxieties.  As nothing stops a lover from reaching his/her beloved (that beloved is not always a person but  may be something that is destructive), so, too nothing stops God from finding us, His beloved child.  God stands “behind our wall, gazing through the windows [into our souls], peering through the lattices” (Song of Songs 2: 9)  into the deepest caverns of our beings.  As a leaping  gazelle or a young stag (cf. Songs of Songs 2: 9) dashes among the hills looking for that which their young hearts desire, so, too, does God look for us.  God longs to enter our wombs/our humanity as God entered Mary’s womb.  Just as Mary brought joy to Elizabeth and just as Elizabeth recognized God’s presence in Mary,  you and I also have the choice of letting Jesus into our lives and bringing Jesus to others, bringing joy to others, as well as recognizing God in those who enter our lives today (or, as the case may be, recognizing that they are not communicating a divine presence) and moving on to persons, places and things that to bring us closer to God.