The Difference Between Light and Darkness

When the Virgin Mary learned of her cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy and rushed to her, she was already carrying Jesus in her womb.

  And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: [42] And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. [43] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? [44] For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. [45] And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord. Douay-Rheims Luke 1:41-45

Several things are learned in those scripture words.  We must understand that Elizabeth is crying out words which the Lord has put to her to say.  Mary's salutation would have been the first and only thing communicated to her, thus calling Mary the "mother of my Lord" could only have been by divine intervention.   Secondly, her baby, still in the womb, "leaped for joy."  Only a human person can feel joy.  Thus it shows that babies in the womb are indeed individual persons and are loved as such by their Lord and creator.

The Catholic teaching concerning Mary is most unique in that since the fall of Adam and Eve, she is the only human conceived without the stain of original sin.  Original sin can be described in an analogy of a rich estate.  The family members and their descendants are entitled to live on the estate because it is theirs.  However, on the sad day when the family loses the estate and they no longer own it, the descendants cannot go back, no matter how deserving; it simply is not theirs anymore.  Original sin is the penalty on all humankind for the sin of Adam and Eve.  The gates of heaven were closed to all of us.  Christ Jesus was always, is and always will be the second person of the Holy Trinity, God.  Jesus is the part of God who created the universe and everything in it including each and every human being, individually.   Mary did not conceive Him, He conceived her.  Thus it was through His will that she was cleansed of original sin before she was born.

And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. [47] And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. [48] Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. [49] Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name. [50] And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him.  Douay-Rheims Luke 1:47-50

This is why she calls Him her Savior.  God had a marvelous, mysterious plan for Mary.  He, Himself would take the physical condition of a zygote, grow and develop a human body within Mary's womb, and be born of her as an infant.  Jesus, who has the power to create or destroy anything, who knows every human being ever born and who will ever be born, who commands a legion of angels, innumerable, has willed Himself to enter the world not crashing through the clouds on a mighty fire breathing steed, throwing lightning in every direction and shouting for honor and adoration in a thunderous voice, but as a new born human infant.

We now know, by twenty-first century technology, that a mother carries in her body, for the rest of her life, the DNA of each child she carried.  We also know that every woman carries in her from her own time in her mother's womb, every egg that has the potential of fertilization and development.  Thus it is true that from her earliest stages of development in her mother's womb, Saint Anne, Mary was already carrying the egg which would be the body of Jesus and that for the rest of her existence she would carry His DNA in her bloodstream.  This is one of many reasons God preserved her from original sin at birth.  This is why one of her names is The Immaculate Conception.

, The Catholic teaching is that Saint John the Baptist was conceived with original sin but was born without the stain of it.  Remember the Jewish leaders asking him by who's authority he baptized?  He did not answer their question directly because they would not have understood it.  He was baptizing by the authority of Jesus, as taught to him by Jesus, when Jesus spiritually baptized him womb to womb the moment his mother heard Mary's salutation.  That is why John the Baptist leaped for joy in his mother's womb. Thus we have a spiritual communication to an unborn infant from his God, another unborn infant.

Now let us venture into the darkness.  Abortionist Lisa Harris describes an unforeseen and emotional experience she had while dismembering an eighteen week old fetus while she herself was carrying an eighteen week old fetus in her womb.

With my first pass of the forceps, I grasped an extremity and began to pull it down. I could see a small foot hanging from the teeth of my forceps. With a quick tug, I separated the leg.

Precisely at that moment, I felt a kick – a fluttery “thump, thump” in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement.

There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a “thump, thump” in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes – without me – meaning my conscious brain – even being aware of what was going on. 

The perverse similarity of her experience to the story of Mary and Elizabeth struck me.  I am convinced that Ms. Harris's baby leaped with horror as it spiritually understood that the other baby was just murdered.  Ms. Harris and her child were so closely bonded as she cradled it in her womb and nourished it with her own body, that the grief and sorrow of such a great crime poured over from that infant through her heart and out of her eyes in a stream of tears.  One could try to explain it to her, but like the Jewish leaders of Saint John the Baptist's time, she wouldn't understand it or believe it.

All of the sins of the flesh are most grave and cry out for vengeance however, killing a baby in the womb is the most depraved of them all.  Christ was there.  Christ, unlike us, was divinely aware of Himself and His condition while He was in the womb.  He loves each and every one of those babies more tenderly and personally before birth as we love our children after birth.  We can only think of the "baby" abstractly before they are born because with our physical limitations of experiencing things with our five physical senses, we do not know them until we can see them and hold them.  Christ already knows them better than we ever will.

As for poor Lisa Harris, pray for her!  Pray to our good Lord that she sees the horror she is committing.  Pray that she comes face to face with her guilt so that she may avail herself of Christ's infinite mercy to the truly repentant sinner.