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In terms of social unrest today or 2000 years ago what happens to a young Palestinian woman unmarried who turns up pregnant? How can she safely carry the child to term? And then what happens to them? In Bethlehem a few years ago I listened to a French speaking nun from Lydda tell a group of us North American pilgrims what happens there at the orphanage where she serves.  They take in orphans, and raise them through their first school years. An 18-year-old man came to their door one day with a gift. It was a thank you gift: his first paycheck. Years before he was born and cared for and raised to school-age there at la Crèche de Bethléem. Kids grow up there, up to first grade, then go to foster programs and schools until they are full grown. Where did these kids come from? Some are children found abandoned, or placed temporarily by social services due to serious social unrest or problems within their families. And others? Their mothers were young unmarried women from villages in Palestine who became pregnant. A scandal, possibly fatal, would erupt if their pregnancy was discovered or they had a child in their hometown. So on the quiet they are brought to Bethlehem where the child is born and the mother is cared for. Then the mother returns to her village. Crisis averted: the child lives, the mother lives, violence is not done to either one. How different it was for Mary who knew her husband but not yet intimately. Customarily he would have severed the relationship if she were pregnant by another man, wouldn’t he? But he protects her and raises the child with her and so the holy family begins its journey. Pregnancy is risky, always risky when the child is unwanted or wanted only by a jealous king its peril is increased. Mary took on the risk, as did Joseph, and what we see in Mary is more than courage: it is humility and obedience. She sees herself as of lowly estate, as a simple daughter of a village family. She is not the daughter of the king, not a daughter of Herod and certainly not the child of Caesar Augustus who was called “son of God, King of Kings.”  (Read or watch “I Claudius'' and you’ll see just how wildly different two young women can be.) Mary is a woman of honor and great strength. To say, “Let it be done to me according to thy word,” is to take on a great burden for any woman. To bear a child in time of danger, to take on the grace and favor that is not her due but her desire now to serve God as God calls her to serve. Mary Holmes, art history teacher at Cowell College, said that the virtue our society needs now is obedience – and I think she meant it in the Marion sense of docility: accepting the reign of God and the power of the spirit is not passivity. Mary is already empowered by her creator’s love and her sacrificial response. She will now know no ordinary life nor will her son. All that is changed now and forever. She is a woman clothed with the sun: made shining and glorious by her simplicity and her humility, her obedience and her courageous response: “Here I am, Lord.” Oh, by the way, that 18 year old was sent out with a fond farewell by his foster parents but he was back at the door in moments. “Mom, could you give me money for the bus?” He had given them his whole paycheck and it was all he had.

JRL+  

1. Here am I Lord: let it be done to me according to thy word.
2. Docility, obedience: Mary Holmes
3. He hath regarded the lowly estate of his handmaiden: Martin Luther Christmas Book (1950)
4. Risky: la Crèche de Bethléem en Palestine. (https://www.helloasso.com/associations/amis-de-la-creche-de-bethleem)

(https://youtu.be/sU6B9GzPuM8)

What happens to a young Palestinian woman who turns up pregnant?

“Docility is to have reverence and acceptance of God’s plan for our lives in order to experience fulfillment, true happiness and closeness to God.” (https://ct.dio.org/item/4903-docility-to-the-holy-spirit.html)

A version of this story was printed in the Arizona Daily Star on December 19th 2021, page E3, under the title, "Trust in God as Mary did."