by Sara Parvis

Zacharias, Mary, silence and song

‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
Because he has visited his people and redeemed them,
And has raised up for us a horn of salvation in the house of his child David.
Just as he spoke through the mouths of his holy prophets of old:
Salvation from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us,
To show mercy to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant,
The oath which he swore to Abraham our father,
To grant us to serve him without fear, rescued from the hand of our enemies,
In holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you also, little child, you shall be called a prophet of the Most High,
For you shall go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
To give knowledge of salvation to his people, in forgiving their sins.

Because of the tender mercies of our God, the dawn from on high shall visit us,
To shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death,
And to make straight our feet on the way of peace’.

Those who say the Office regularly are used to the beautiful Canticle of Zacharias serving as a kind of morning star to Morning Prayer, just as the Magnificat serves as the evening star to Evening Prayer. But in Luke’s Gospel they come the opposite way round. The first part of Zacharias’ story begins the Gospel, but his story is wrapped around the first part of Mary’s story, the Annunciation and Visitation. Mary and her song of liberation, through the Holy Spirit which has come upon her, liberate Zacharias, and consequently make his own song possible.

Dr Sara Parivs is Senior Lecturer in Patristics at the School of Divinity, Edinburgh University

Photo by British Library on Unsplash.