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Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.


Today's Gospel: Luke 1:39-45

Sometimes being a mom can feel lonely. Especially when our children are very young, we spend many solitary or quiet hours washing bottles, sorting laundry, or trying to rock our babies to sleep. Sometimes we’re so tired in motherhood that mustering the energy to reach out to other moms feels really hard. Yet looking back on my motherhood, I realize that those tired days were the times that I needed other moms the most. I needed accompaniment, friendship, or someone to encourage me. I needed to share a cup of coffee with another mom who felt as much in the trenches as I did.

Today’s Gospel reading is the Visitation. Mary has just learned that she is pregnant with Jesus, and she goes to Elizabeth in haste. I imagine that young Mary felt a lot of emotions in those early months of pregnancy, perhaps confusion, excitement, and gratitude. She likely even felt morning sickness and pregnancy cravings. I imagine, too, that Mary had a lot of questions about how to be a mother. Elizabeth, as an older woman, may have been able to share insights at least from the wisdom of age, though she, too, was newly pregnant with John the Baptist. Mary needed a friend like her cousin Elizabeth.

The joyful encounter between Mary and Elizabeth in the Visitation is exactly what every woman needs and deserves in friendship. We need friends who welcome us into their homes when we want to share what is going in our lives. We need friends who celebrate our good news, as Elizabeth did for Mary:

“Most blessed are you among women.”

Give thanks for the moms in your life today. Consider reaching out to a mom who may need a friend like you today.

 

Ponder:

 

Do you have a friend who loves you as Elizabeth loved Mary?

 

Pray:


God, thank You for the friends You place in our lives. Help us to be generous friends to the moms in our lives.

 


Daily Gospel 2

 


Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Tomlin