Blessed Among Us by Robert Ellsberg

Author:Robert Ellsberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2016-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

“Listen, Christians! We are the last victims. The persecution is going to stop. The gallows will be destroyed. The altars of Jesus will rise again gloriously.”

—Blessed Madeleine Fontaine

JUNE 27

Hannah

Mother of the Prophet Samuel

In the Gospel of Luke, Mary proclaims a remarkable hymn of praise, the Magnificat, in which she interprets the wonderful events overtaking her life in terms of a wholesale reversal of the social order: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. . . . / He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly; / he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

Mary’s words echo a similar hymn by Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel. Hannah, the barren wife of Elkanah, whose other wife tormented her, had prayed to God to open her womb, promising that she would dedicate her son to the service of the Lord. When her prayer was answered with the birth of Samuel, Hannah sang out: “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord. / My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation.”

Like Mary, she names the Lord as the champion of the oppressed: “He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, / to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor.” And Hannah also shows herself to be a prophet, envisioning what will be: “The Lord will judge the ends of the earth; he will give strength to his king, and exalt the power of his anointed.”

Samuel went on to serve the Lord. And Hannah bore five more children.

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