11 February 2027 · Syro-Malankara Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Latin Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;” Luke 1:48
The reading from Genesis is painful and honest. Sarai, childless, decides to help God keep his promise in her own way: “go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” Abram agrees. Hagar conceives, contempt grows, Sarai blames Abram, and Abram washes his hands: “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Sarai deals harshly with her, and the Egyptian slave runs away into the wilderness. A plan made without waiting on God ends with a household broken and the weakest person paying the price. Paul points to the opposite way: “seek the things that are above, where Christ is… Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
The Gospel is Mary's song, the prayer of one who waited on God and let him act: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant… He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.” On 11 February 1858, at the grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor and sickly girl of fourteen, the first of eighteen apparitions. On 25 March she named herself: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” At her word a spring was uncovered, and the sick have come to it ever since. Because of this, St John Paul II made 11 February the World Day of the Sick. Today the Lord again looks with favour on the lowly: on Hagar in the wilderness, on Bernadette, and on every sick person who prays to him with Mary.
Theme: “He has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”
A plan made without God, a life hidden with Christ, and the song of the lowly on the World Day of the Sick.
“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,” Colossians 3:2
Apply: Bring one hurried decision to God in prayer before acting.
“You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,” Psalm 91:1
“for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3
Apply: Do one good deed today that no one will see.
“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.” 1 Samuel 2:8
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;” Luke 1:52
Apply: Visit or call a sick person this week.
God's promises are kept in God's way and time.
He looks with favour on the lowly and the sick.
Take-home resolution: Pray the Magnificat each evening of this week for the sick.
Dear friends, Sarai tried to keep God's promise her own way. She gave Hagar to Abram, and the household broke: contempt, blame, harshness, and a slave-girl running into the wilderness (Genesis 16:2–6).
Paul shows a different way: set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:2–3).
Mary lived that way. She sang: he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant; he has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly (Luke 1:48, 52).
At Lourdes in 1858 she came to Bernadette, a poor sick girl, and the sick have gone there ever since. On this World Day of the Sick, let us pray for the sick, visit them, and magnify the Lord with Mary. Amen.
Children, Mary sang a beautiful song: God loves the little ones! At Lourdes she came to a poor girl, Bernadette. Today, say a Hail Mary for someone who is sick.
Holy Mother of God, Our Lady of Lourdes, you sang that the Lord looks with favour on the lowly. Pray for the sick, the suffering and those who care for them. Teach us to seek the things that are above, to wait on God instead of forcing our own plans, and to magnify the Lord in every circumstance. Lord Jesus, through her prayers heal us in body and soul. Amen.
Two women who waited on God stand side by side today. Sarai, worn down by waiting, makes a plan of her own, and three people are hurt by it. Mary, who waits and lets God act, sings. Between them the epistle gives the secret of such waiting: “your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). On the memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, her song turns our eyes to the lowly and the sick.
Setting.
Ten years have passed in Canaan (16:3), and God's promise of a son to Abram (15:4) has not yet come true. Ancient Near Eastern law collections and contracts know the custom by which a childless wife gave her slave woman to her husband, and the child counted as the wife's. Sarai is doing something her world would have called sensible. The story shows what it costs. Hagar is an Egyptian and a slave, and nobody asks her anything: she is not given one word until the angel finds her in the wilderness.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children” (16:2)
Sarai sees God's hand only as a closed door. So she tries another door. The whole chapter asks what happens when we stop waiting for God and do his work for him.
“And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.” (16:2)
Many readers hear an echo of Eden: “you have listened to the voice of your wife” (3:17). In v. 3 she “took” and “gave” to her husband, as in 3:6. The pattern of the first sin returns inside the family of promise.
“Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” (16:6)
Abram, who believed so greatly in chapter 15, here does nothing to protect the woman who bears his child. The great man of faith is shown failing.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism says that couples who find they cannot have children suffer greatly (CCC 2374), and it teaches that using a third person to bear a child offends against the unity of marriage (CCC 2376). It also explains that the understanding of marriage's unity developed slowly under the old Law, and that the patriarchs' polygamy was not yet explicitly rejected (CCC 1610). Scripture reports these things without approving them, and it lets us see the sorrow they bring.
Setting.
Mary has gone in haste to Elizabeth, who has called her blessed “who believed” (1:45). This is her answer, the song known by its first Latin word, Magnificat. It is woven from the Old Testament, above all the song of Hannah, another woman God lifted up: “He raises up the poor from the dust” (1 Samuel 2:8). Mary stands as the daughter of Israel in whom the promise to Abraham reaches its goal, and the song ends with his name.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (1:48)
A village girl from Nazareth says that every age will call her blessed, and every age has. The reason is in the first half of the verse: God looked at her.
“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (1:52)
The verbs are in the past tense, although Mary sings before any of this is visible. She speaks as the prophets do, seeing God's future as already done. Mary's joy is not a retreat from the world's suffering.
“according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever” (1:55)
The promise of the stars in Genesis 15 is remembered here. God has not forgotten it. What Sarai could not bring about by her plan, God brings about in his own way.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism calls the Magnificat the song both of the Mother of God and of the Church, a song of thanksgiving for the fullness of graces poured out in the economy of salvation (CCC 2619). It quotes “all generations will call me blessed” as the ground of the Church's devotion to Mary (CCC 971). St Ambrose wrote: let the soul of Mary be in each of us to magnify the Lord, and the spirit of Mary to rejoice in God (in substance, on Luke).
On 11 February 1858, at the grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a poor girl of fourteen, the first of eighteen apparitions. On 25 March she named herself: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” St John Paul II made this day the World Day of the Sick. The Magnificat fits it exactly: the Lord chose a lowly child as his witness, and the sick, who are often pushed to the edge, are given the first place. In this first week of the Great Fast, let us remember the sick of our own parish and visit one of them.