Both readings of today's liturgy, Judges 13: 2-7, 24-25a and Luke 1: 5-25, tell the story of two women who were barren and were about to become fertile. The stories also reveal that both Samson and John the Baptist will be consecrated in the womb and chosen as key persons in salvation history. Concerning Samson, the messenger of God said that he is the one "who will begin the deliverance of Israel from the power of the Philistines." John the Baptist, Zachariah, his father, is told "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."
Every child that God brings into the world, including you and me, though not consecrated in the womb but first at our baptisms, has a key role in the salvation of the world. We, too, are called to turn to the Lord ourselves and thereby turn other people to the Lord. We are also to cooperate with God in our deliverance from that which overpowers and distracts us from the one thing necessary: the Lord our God and His Spirit at work in our lives!
As we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Ps. 71, God is our refuge, "a stronghold," the One who "rescues [us] from the hand of the wicked". On God we depended "from birth; from [our] mother's womb [God had been our] strength." It is God who makes it possible for us to carry out the purpose for which He created us. It is God who consecrates us to be a significant person in the salvation of the world in which we live! It is God who transforms our barrenness into fertility for the good all!
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