Blessed from our Mother's Womb

In today’s first  reading, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a, we are presented with the story of the angel of the Lord appearing to the wife of Manoah, to announce to her that, “though you are barren and have had no children, yet you will conceive a son….”  The author of Judges then affirms that “the woman bore a son and named him Samson. The boy grew up and the Lord blessed him; the Spirit of the Lord stirred him.”  In the Gospel, Luke 1: 5-25, we are told the story of the angel announcing to Zachariah that “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John,” and that “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.” 

Just as with Samson and John the Baptist, so, too, was God involved in the conception of each one of us. God chose our parents for us, prepared our coming to birth, determined our purpose in life, as He did Samson’s and John’s  from their mother’s womb. As the Spirit stirred Samson and directed John throughout their lives, so, too, the Spirit stirs us.   In the responsorial psalm of today’s liturgy, Psalm 71, we say to the Lord: “On you  I depend from birth; from my mother’s womb you are my strength.”   

May we, Lord, be aware of this heritage of grace. May we recognize God’s Spirit stirring us to realize the purpose for which God created us, the purpose for which we are where we are, with the persons with whom we share life this day, involved in the world and the Church in the ways that we are.