Not everything great pleases the Lord.

Not everything that is solemn and grand is pleasing to God, and God wants it that way. In the Gospel, we heard how God quietly chose a simple man for a significant event in salvation history (cf. Luke 1:26-38).

The Gospel takes us from the event with Zechariah in the temple of Jerusalem to an unassuming town in Galilee, which was the northernmost part of Palestine. The people called this area the land of the Gentiles – because of the number of Gentiles who settled there. Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would magnify the seashore, Transjordan, the Galilee of the Gentiles. This is where God’s message is coming – to this region and to the little town of Nazareth, which was historically insignificant. Jesus’ contemporary asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Perhaps this insignificance is why God began his work of salvation `here.’ According to the Gospel, the message to Nazareth is brought by the same messenger as before to Zechariah in Jerusalem – Gabriel. This time, however, the messenger does not come to a priest but comes to a simple woman `the virgin betrothed to a man of the line of David named Joseph. And the virgin’s name was Mary” (Luke 1:27).

In Nazareth, mysterious promises begin to be fulfilled. God sends his message to the Virgin. Of this Virgin, we know that she is betrothed to a man. The betrothed man is Joseph, who comes from the line of David. The Lord God arranged things so that Mary’s son – before the law, the son of Joseph, could be a descendant of David’s royal lineage according to the law. The Messiah was to be a descendant of David.

There is a tendency today for people to seek sensationalism, and they often go to great lengths for it. Many people go to places of pilgrimage to see some revelation. But they are disappointed because they have not seen any disclosure. Although they have seen nothing, or even if they have seen something, which may not yet be a revelation, but a suggestion, they immediately go to tell everyone they meet.
Let us try; though we may have some signs and apparitions, which is not impossible, we can confide them to a person who will understand us and keep them to himself. It may also happen that we confess to someone who will look upon us as foolish and make us look stupid in front of others.

Let us live in retreat and suddenness, as Our Lady did. … God will find us as he found her.

I once traveled with a priest to a small village remote from the civilized world. From this village came two deacons and one divine. As we were riding in the car, I said: “This village has the Lord God’s back.” The priest driving me said: “You see, even though this village is completely cut off from the world, God has found people to serve Him here too.”

Let us not seek incredible sensations around us, for God does not like that, but let us be more concerned with the little things, for out of these grow great things that will please our Lord.