the real gift

Monday December 19th, Luke 1: The virgin's name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Highly favored!! What had Mary done to make her highly favored? She was not a prophetess, a preacher or a poet; she was just a young maiden of no great lineage from nowhere. And when we say young, we mean probably around 13 at the time, with Joseph being much, much older. Not the stuff of the family values crowd. The term translated into English as virgin is more accurately translated as a young maiden who may or may not even be virgin as we would use the term. Just a young maiden of no virtue other than that she was chosen by God. When it comes right down to it can any of us claim anything more or anything less? All the greatness we create, all the good we do, all the wealth we have simply comes to us as a gift from God and all too often in the case of power and wealth, the manipulation of situations that create victims of other children of God. There are times when we get a glimpse of Mary’s response in our own lives and in those times we tend to use all, or at least some of these many gifts for the Kingdom. Those are the few times that we can almost see the shimmer of Heaven off in the distance and hear the angels sing. Perhaps it was Mary’s gift of the willingness to be an open, giving, willing child of God that is the real gift, out of which comes the Messiah.