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"The
Word became flesh and dwelt among us." - John 1:14
The
Smallest Room in the World
In the Marche region of Italy,
on a laurel-covered hill above the Adriatic coast, there is a small stone room
enclosed within marble, enshrined within a magnificent church, visited by
millions across seven centuries. It is not large. It is not grand. By every
external measure, it is just a room.
According to the cherished
tradition of the Church, it is the room of the Annunciation, the house of
Nazareth, where Gabriel spoke, where Mary said yes, and where the Son of God
took human flesh. The Santa Casa, the Holy House, was transported miraculously to
this Italian hilltop in 1294 when the Crusader presence in the Holy Land
collapsed.
Popes have knelt here. Saints
have wept here. Emperors have sent treasures here. Bramante designed the marble
casing. Sansovino and Raphael and others of the Renaissance's greatest gave
their gifts here. All of it, all that magnificence, built around a simple stone
room where a young woman once said yes.
What strikes every pilgrim is
the smallness of it. The Incarnation took place in a house where someone swept
floors and cooked meals, and prayed in the morning light. God chose the ordinary.
God chose small. That is perhaps the deepest miracle of all.
Today's
Gospel - John 15:18-21
Jesus
told His disciples: "If the world hates you, know that it hated me
first." The world rejected the smallness of Nazareth. It rejected the
ordinariness of a carpenter's home and a girl no one had heard of. It did not
recognize what was happening in that small room.
It
still often fails to recognize the sacred in the ordinary. But the faithful who
built that magnificent basilica around a simple stone room understood something
the world missed: the holiest moment in human history took place in a house. In
a room. With one woman saying yes.
Our
Lady of Loreto reminds us to look for God in the ordinary places, in our own
small rooms, in the unhurried moments, in the morning light. He has already
been there. He is already there.
A Prayer
Our
Lady of Loreto, you in whose humble home the Word became flesh, make our homes
holy.
May
the conversations spoken in our rooms be worthy of the angels who once visited
yours. May the love that lives within our walls reflect, however faintly, the
love that came to dwell in yours.
And
for all who feel far from God today, remind them that He chose to come very
close. He chose a small room in an ordinary town. He will choose the small
rooms of their lives too, if they will open the door.
Our
Lady of Loreto, pray for us. Amen.
Reflection
Mary
did not receive the Incarnation in a cathedral. She received it in a room, it
was probably small, and maybe even unremarkable, certainly unknown to the
world.
We tend to look for God in the elevated moments, the schedule of a retreat, the
feast day celebration, and even during the hour set aside for prayer. But
Loreto asks us to look again at the ordinary hours, that we have been too busy,
even too distracted, or too unimpressed to consecrate at all. In the kitchen or during your commute to work.
The question is not whether God is present in those places. Loreto answers that
He is. The question is whether we are present enough to recognize Him in them, and
whether, like Mary, we are willing to say yes to what Jesus is asking of us.
What would it change in how your life tomorrow, if you believed your home, your
office, your simple ordinary day was already holy ground? God is ever present
with you. Embrace the holiness of a life that loves Jesus
every single day.
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
