In this installment, we shall consider the second of Luke’s canticles, the
Benedictus. However, like St. Luke himself, we must set the stage. Luke, a very precise historian, informs us of the exact time and place of the events we are about to read,
1 in the Temple during the reign of King Herod, when the priest Zechariah – from the family of Abijah – was on duty. Further, not only was Zechariah a priest but his wife Elizabeth likewise came from a priestly family.
We learn that the two spouses were “righteous,”
3 observing all the precepts of the Law. In spite of that, they were childless, then commonly seen as divine disfavor for infidelity to the Law. St. John Chrysostom offers an Old Testament context and a New Testament application: “Not only Elisabeth, but the wives of the Patriarchs also, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, were barren, which was counted a disgrace among the ancients. Not that their barrenness was the effect of sin, since all were just and virtuous, but ordained rather for our benefit, that when you saw a virgin giving birth to the Lord, you might not be faithless, or perplexing your mind with respect to the womb of the barren.” Such a misfortune, then, is not always a punishment: In the case of the man born blind in John’s Gospel, we are informed by Our Lord that: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (Jn 9:3). We must conclude that this was also the case here. Indeed, John comes from “good stock.”