Luke 2:16-21 NRSVue
16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, 19and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.
21When the eighth day came, it was time to circumcise the child, and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
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Reflection on Luke 2:16-21
Inspiration from 2025-01-01 Daily Prayer
Very few of Mary’s words are given in the New Testament. She achieved so much by her silent presence along with her son at many of the key moments in his life, his birth, his first miracle at Cana, and his death on the cross. She is for us a model of silent contemplation as she ponders with great faith and devotion the mystery that unfolded before her in the life of her Son.
The name Jesus is a Greek translation from the commonly used biblical Hebrew Yeshua or Joshua, meaning ‘one who saves’. St Peter, speaking to the Jewish authorities after the resurrection, said, ‘There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.’ Let us unite our prayer with the prayer of Jesus to the Father in the Spirit.
Further reflection
We start the year, as we start our life, under the protection of a mother. Mary is mother of God - it took the Christian church three hundred years to become clear about this – and our mother too. Sartre imagines Mary meditating in Bethlehem:
/I think that there are rapid, fleeting moments when Mary realises at once that Jesus is her son, her very own baby, and that he is God. She looks at him and thinks: This God is my baby. This divine flesh is my flesh. He is made from me. He has my eyes, and the curve of his mouth is the curve of mine. He is like me. He is God and he is like me./
/No other woman has been lucky enough to have a God for herself alone, a tiny little God whom she can take in her arms and cover with kisses, a warm-bodied God who smiles and breathes, a God that she can touch, who is alive. And it is in these moments that I would paint Mary, if I was a painter, and I would try to capture the air of radiant tenderness and timidity with which she lifts her finger to touch the sweet skin of her baby-God, whose warm weight she feels on her knees, and who smiles./
We are named and loved by God before birth. From the moment of conception we are named in the mind and love of God just as Jesus was. We carry that love through life. In prayer you might repeat your baptismal - or ‘Christian' - name like a mantra, and allow God's choice of you fill that name with thanks, love and commitment. Happy new year!
We are named and loved by God before birth. From the moment of conception we are named in the mind and love of God just as Jesus was. We carry that love through life. In prayer you might repeat your baptismal - or ‘Christian' - name like a mantra, and allow God's choice of you fill that name with thanks, love and commitment. Happy new year!