Luke 1: 51-55
And Mary said,
‘He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
Liberation
In October 2024, only the very observant who follow Latin American news, would have read about the death of a Peruvian priest called Gustavo Gutiérrez. He had died at the grand old age of 96 – but in 1971, he wrote a book called ‘A Theology of Liberation’ that rattled a few cages around the academic and ecclesiastical world. He worked amongst the crushingly poor in the city of Lima and, from his experience, he concluded that the inequality of the poor was caused by the oppression and greed of the rich. He demanded that the Church ‘stand up’ and help with the political liberation of the poor. Some 2000 years earlier, a young woman, on discovering that she was pregnant, said a heartfelt prayer of her hopes for her unborn son – that he would help to right so many wrongs and bring justice to a world of inequalities. It is ‘work in progress’ – but in this Advent season may we echo Mary’s prayer and Gutiérrez’ hope; that justice and peace prevail in our fractured world.
Helen W