Hearing of Paul and Silas singing God’s praises in jail makes me want to talk about a song I know. A song we all know. It goes: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you.” It is a prayer, of course, but in fact it is a song. There have been thousands of musical settings created to sing it. But none compares to the incomparable sounds that Mary heard though the voice of Gabriel speaking the Words of God Himself!
Perhaps as we say the prayer, we are directing ourselves to Our Lady, our Mother, seeking her help, as indeed is very good. Yet be aware that it is a love song! Words of betrothal from God to Mary, asking that the Holy Spirit may overshadow her and possess her in love so that the Word become flesh in the depths of her being!
We continue singing with Elizabeth, “Blessed are you among women,” lost in wonder at the beauty and power of what the Lord is doing in Mary Immaculate – yet also realizing that we are taking part and we say “YES” too! The “Hail Mary” is the Holy Trinity’s love song, uniting himself to humanity, in the Church, forever.
So, we want to repeat it over and over as we pray the Holy Rosary. We do so, meditating on the Mysteries of Christ’s life. Our brains may be too small at this stage of our existence for us to always be conscious of this awesome truth, but at least let us try to pray aware that the Lord is always with us!
We have heard today that Paul and Silas are jail. They too are “singing God’s praises.” Their chains and the chains of all the prisoners fall off! But they didn’t rush out of the jail … Singing God’s praise they are freed! Then they stayed to save the life of the jailer. They brought Christ’s salvation and freedom to all his family and then ate a meal together!
That sounds like a great way to live today. We need this now, don’t we? Spending our day singing God’s praises, praying the Rosary and lots of other prayers and songs! Let’s let the chains fall and find our freedom in Christ! In today’s Gospel we hear Him promising to send us the Holy Spirit too!
