December 24, 2025, Wednesday Morning Mass
Lectionary #200, Luke 1: 67-79
Scripture
Zechariah, his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying:
“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David. Through his prophets he promised of old that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the hand of our enemies, free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.
You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Reflection
Luke is the gospel of songs. Here, we find the song called the Benedictus. Luke also contains the biblical half of the Hail Mary, the Virgin’s Magnificat, as well as the elderly Simeon’s song of confidence in the Lord, the Nunc dimittis. Zechariah was happy with a happiness that made him sing the praises of God. He was “filled with the Holy Spirit” as Elizabeth had been earlier, when she addressed Mary and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (1: 41-42). When one is filled with the Holy Spirit, one blesses the Lord. Praise and blessing are signs of the Spirit.
Zechariah blesses God for visiting. To visit here means to call upon people, to become aware of them, to be present to them. All quite elementary and precisely because of that, vital. The intent of this verse is not only to say that God knows we exist but that God knows us well.
This will not be a formal visit, one based on manners and deference. God’s visits are always hands-on calls; they accomplish something: God redeems people, sets them free, and unshackles them. This is salvation, and it remains our most valid reason for praising and thanking. Zechariah praises God, who alone came to save. God came in person and accomplished this freeing act “in the flesh”. This is mysterious, and the Benedictus, like all great songs, holds a mystery in its air.
Zechariah had other reasons for giving praise. He blessed Yahweh for being faithful throughout the centuries, despite the people’s infidelities. God remembered all the covenants made with Israel, as well as “the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant that…we may serve him without fear….” This is the oath God swore after having spared Isaac from the sacrificial knife of Abraham: “Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you” (Genesis 22: 16-17).
If the gospels have one overriding purpose, it is to recall the continuity of the traditions and prophecies of old with the realities of the ‘new way.’ Zechariah’s hymn sings of salvation wrought by God, and if there is one truth that can be assumed, it is that God can be trusted, believed in, and believed. God would not be God without it.
Perhaps the last word of this song is the one that the world of this year would most prize: peace. The prophet Zechariah is indeed a prophet, as a prophet’s voice both praises and predicts. He sings that this peace is one that we can receive from God if we walk in his ways: “to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Peace is a gift, but it is possible to be unable to receive it, to have a heart and a soul that are utterly incompatible with God’s peace. This peace is more than the absence of strife but a combination of order, joy, trust, the knowledge of being saved, and salvation itself. The peace hailed here has an eloquent echo at the close of the gospel, when Jesus greeted the disciples of Emmaus: “Peace be with you,” he said to them.
Mary’s apparition at La Salette is a call to praise and bless the Lord. She reminds people to observe the day that the Lord has reserved for worship. She says that “those who drive carts cannot swear without throwing in my Son’s name. These are the two things that make the arm of my Son so heavy”, she concludes.
It is one thing to be visited by God and quite another to welcome the visit. A good candidate for the ultimate sin would be ignoring God to the point of disrespect. A mind and soul thus inhabited are unable to accept the gift of peace. When Zechariah sang of God visiting his people, he sang of God’s regard for them, of God’s “taking note” of them and “minding” them. At La Salette, Mary twice reproaches her people for paying “no heed.” There is no insult equal to that of being ignored. It is the sin of doing nothing, the ultimate affront to One who insists on visiting his people.
La Salette Invocation
Our Lady of La Salette, reconciler of sinners,
pray without ceasing for us who have recourse to you.
