Mary and Rachel: Biblical Women in Travail

For the Mass Readings on the 4th Sunday of Advent (Year C), Dr. Pitre comments on the readings that give us the account of Mary's Visitation to Elizabeth and the prophet Micah's prophesy of Micah 5 about the Birth of the Messiah.

In this video, which is a segment of the abovementioned video, Dr. Pitre discusses the parallels between the Old Testament figure of Rachel in the Book of Genesis, as implicitly referenced by Micah 5, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.


Notable quote from this week's video from the 4th Sunday of Advent (Year C):

"...[S]ometimes our non-Catholic brothers and sisters, non-Catholic Christians, will say, you know, why do you Catholics give so much honor to Mary? Don't you think it's just too much? Is just too much emphasis. You're taking away from Jesus by honoring her. Not according to the Bible.

I mean notice here, who is it that inspires Elizabeth to utter these words of honor over Mary? It’s the Holy Spirit. So apparently the Holy Spirit didn't have a problem with Elizabeth blessing Mary. Same thing, it's the Holy Spirit who inspires the author of Luke's gospel, Luke, to tell us that Elizabeth was humbled in the presence of Mary. None of this takes away from Christ, it's Christ himself who makes Mary mother of the Messiah, that makes Mary mother of God. And so Elizabeth doesn't honor either Christ or Mary, she honors Mary because of Christ. It's a both and, not an either or."


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