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For the summer before my final year in seminary, I had it all planned out. I was going to go and serve at a parish again. I even had talked with some clergy friends of mine in Alabama and had, more or less, a plan of action mapped out.
Instead, I was told I needed to go through another unit of what is known as Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE. My first unit had been pretty rough with a supervisor who used outdated and damaging counseling methods to lead. It felt like getting orders to go back to hell.
Most CPE programs serve in a hospital. I found one, The Training and Counseling Center (TACC) in Atlanta, that worked with a lot of non-profits and churches. It seemed like a way to maybe do the kind of work I had been hoping to do.
At first I didn’t get into this program. Then a few hours later I got a call back saying one of the participants had dropped out. They had a place for me if I wanted it.
After I started in TACC, I found a program connected with them that served people living with mental illness and disabilities out of Holy Comforter Episcopal Church. This was exactly the sort of parish work I was hopping to do. The problem was one of my peers was interested in that spot too. Fortunately he had another program location he was also interested in, so I got to be at Holy Comforter. I ended up doing the work I wanted to all along.
I should have looked at God with gratitude for all the good that had come out of what I thought was going to be a tough situation. Instead it was hard for me to let go of what had happened earlier. It took me a long time to fully appreciate the gift God had given me.
What makes Mary so special in her faith is that she could do what many of us cannot, or at least what many of us struggle with. Mary could and did appreciate what God provided her, even with all the hardship around it.
In the Gospel today, we see Elizabeth prophesy over Mary about Jesus, and Mary break into song with the Magnificat. We don’t see what all has come before. We don’t see the fear that Mary must have had.
For Mary to be told by Gabriel that she was with child must have been frightening. In those days, Mary could have been put to death for being pregnant outside her relationship with her betrothed Joseph, even if the baby was from God. Mary, in all likelihood, also would have been a teenager, and a young one at that. This would have been a lot for her to take on.
Yet Mary isn’t upset or bitter. She simply says to the Angel Gabriel “behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” Even now when her relative Elizabeth has “found her out”, she doesn’t cower in fear. She breaks into song. This song is remarkably similar to Hannah’s Song when she was giving birth to the Prophet Samuel. These aren’t the words of someone who is surprisingly and dangerously pregnant. These are the words of a woman who has longed for a child for quite some time, as Hannah did for Samuel.
In times past, people have tried to lift Mary up to an almost divine-like status. Personally, it helps me more to see her as human, like the rest of us. She struggled, as we do. She had trials and tribulations, as we do. Yet through all of that, she had faith and gratitude to our Lord. Even though her life was turned upside down, she gave thanks to God for the good that was yet to come from all that she went through.
I wasn’t where Mary was when I was serving at Holy Comforter with TACC. I don’t know that I can say I’m where Mary was right now. Yet seeing her as human, albeit as the Godbearer and mother of our Lord, I have hope. I hope that even if I’m not where Mary was now, maybe I can be in the future. She gives me an example to aim for in how to have faith in God.
My hope is that Mary makes you feel the same way too. When you struggle, I hope Mary gives you an example of how to look at your troubles. I hope when you struggle to have faith, to have trust, that Mary helps show you how to do it. Ultimately, I hope Mary gives you an example of what we have been preparing for as we get ready to let the Christ child into our hearts in this coming Christmas Season.