Monday. 12/22/14
The readings today feature women who were overjoyed at
knowing they were to have their firstborn.
The first reading features a woman from the first years
after the Israelites had settled into the Promised Land. At a place called
Shiloh in the woodlands of Ephraim the tribes had built a wooden sanctuary for
housing the Arc of the Covenant, and they had entrusted it to the priestly
family of a man named Eli.
A man from Ramathaim named Elkanah used to come to Shiloh
each year to offer a sacrifice before the Lord, and he would divide the
sacrifice between his two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Now, Peninnah had given
him sons, and she scorned Hannah who had remained childless.
One day Hannah had come alone into the sanctuary to plead
with the Lord for a son; and the old priest Eli, seeing her lips moving
silently accused her of being drunk. When she told him the truth, Eli promised
her that by the following year she would have a son. When that son, little
Samuel came, Hannah gave him to the Lord at Shiloh, and every year she visited
him with a new little robe she had knitted for him.
Mary’s Magnificat of joy at bearing Jesus echoed the hymn Hannah
offered up at Shiloh.
In my family, Joan, the first of my four sisters to be
married, had to see her sisters all give birth while she remained childless. My
happiest memory from those years came one evening after Joan had been married
for seven years. Wearing winter red and blues, she stepped into our living
room, clapping her hands, and calling out, “We’re going to have a baby, we’re
going to have a baby!”
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