Thứ Bảy 19-12

Bài đọc
Thủ Lãnh 13:2-7, 24-25
TV 70(71):3-6, 16-17
Luca 1:5-25

"Zechariah went home. After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived"

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The angel said to him: «God has heard the voice of your prayer». If Zechariah believed his prayer would be heard then he prayed well; if he did not believe, he prayed badly. His prayer was about to be answered, yet he doubted. Therefore it was reasonable that at that very moment the word was removed from him. Beforehand he was praying for a son but the instant his prayer was answered he turned around and said: «How can this be?» Because it was with his mouth that he cast doubts on his prayer, it was his speech he lost ... So long as Zechariah believed, he spoke; as soon as he ceased to believe, he was silent. So long as he believed, he spoke: «I believed and therefore I spoke» (Ps 116[115],10). Because he rejected the angel's word, this word plagued him so that he would respect with his silence the word he had rejected.

It was fitting that the mouth that said: «How shall this be?» should be silenced so that it might learn the possibility of a miracle. The unbound tongue was bound so that it might learn that He who had bound the tongue was capable of unbinding the womb. In this way experience taught him who had not accepted the teaching of faith... Thus he learned that he who had closed an open mouth could open a closed womb

Saint Ephrem