Take pity on your holy city,

Jerusalem, your dwelling place.

Fill Zion with your majesty,

your temple with your glory.

“Take pity on your holy city” speaks of the Immaculate Conception; Mary, who participated in the redemptive act of her son in a special way.

“Jerusalem, your dwelling place,” the womb of the Virgin Mary, in a most spectacular fashion.  And in a different way in the order of grace, the hearts of all believers through faith.

“Fill Zion with your majesty” is the advent groaning of the Church and indeed all people through all ages for the final culmination of the restoration of all creation in Christ.  It is also eminently fulfilled in the Virgin Mary, she who is “full of grace.”

“Fill your temple with your glory” is the final beckoning in this passage which expresses the longing for the fullness of God’s presence.  The Israelites could never have conceived the answer to this longing would be perfectly fulfilled in the Incarnation of the Word – the coming of the God-man.  In the “fullness of time” God filled the temple of the spotless Virgin’s womb with his majesty and glory by taking on human flesh.  The Word who was present during the creation of the world as Wisdom, the Word, coeternal with the Father and the Spirit, the Word, speaking to us in Old Testament times through the Law and the prophets, the Word – the uttered mind of the Father, present everywhere, through and as, the Holy Scriptures, the Word, longing of all creation, most especially the human soul, the Word, our destiny, our reason for existence, our heritage, our glory, the only delight for our mind and heart, the only source of light, the sole object of our will and reason, is flesh and blood before us.  He is the baby growing in Mary’s womb, getting larger.  He is born in a cave on a dark night, in all poverty, need, and utter reliance and dependence upon us.  He nurses at Mary’s breast, has little, wiggling toes.  He has hair, lips, and nose.  He eats, grows, speaks.  God himself, the eternal Wisdom, the uttered Word, has shattered completely and fully into our world and our existence.  Once dim, now bright.  Once indirect, now in the flesh.  We no longer have a God “up there” to worship, but one of flesh and bone, who leads us and guides us.  Not a God who is beyond suffering, but one who suffered immeasurably while a man among us.  One who followed the commands he gave to us, to their perfect fulfillment in his death for us.

The Incarnation of the Word is the heart, soul, essence and only object of our faith.  We are the brother, sister and yes, even mother, of the Incarnate Word if we hear the word of God and do it.  “This is eternal life: to know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17.3)