Scripture Study for

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Understanding the Word

By Br. John R. Barker, OFM

A significant aspect of the priestly role in ancient Israel, as  today, was to ask for God’s blessing for individuals and the entire  community. In this passage from Numbers, God gives the priests a  specific prayer of blessing to call down divine favor on Israel. Divine  blessing is an all-encompassing concept, with material and spiritual  aspects. It involves protection, fecundity, well-being, personal and  social harmony—in a word, shalom. The holistic nature of the  blessing is captured in a number of ways. To keep means to guard  and protect, while to “shine his face upon you” means to have a  generally favorable disposition. Graciousness implies the divine  generosity, as does the notion of divine kindness. 

In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul emphasizes both the divine  and human origins of Christ, both of which bring blessing on those  incorporated into Christ through baptism. Born of a woman, Jesus  is fully human, sharing in our human condition and subject himself  to the law. At the same time, as God’s Son, he has the power to  save, which the law cannot do. This salvation is effected by making  Christians the children of God by adoption, a legal and familial  metaphor that means that they are heirs, along with Christ, to all  of God’s promises. This selection features the work of (what would  eventually be understood as) the Trinity: God the Father, who through  the Spirit, brings Christians into “sonship” along with Christ. 

The shepherds have been informed by the angels that the child  born in Bethlehem, although poor and unknown, is in fact the  Savior (Luke 2:8–15). Finding the child in a manger, they announce  what they have heard to Mary and Joseph. While the onlookers are  amazed that such a child could possibly be “Messiah and Lord,”  Mary is unsurprised, and subsequently reflects on “these things.”  The shepherds, among the first believers in this gospel, now go back  out into the world to glorify and praise God for what has been done  in Jesus. 

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