30 Dec 2025
Meditation: An Expansion of Scripture
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
For 30 December 2025, Sixth day within the octave of Christmas, based on Luke 2:36-40
There was also a prophet there, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
General editor:
31 December 2025 @ 3:38 am
Love this, Sr. Marianne. Thanks for lifting up Anna and the other women of the Bible and the questions they raise for us today!
31 December 2025 @ 4:00 am
Sr. Marianne, there is very much wisdom in your words. Maybe, of what you speak is the “interpreters” of scripture ignoring what is written. Much like saying to us, the faithful, “do not confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.” Beautiful reflection.
31 December 2025 @ 4:09 am
Marianne – Thanks once again for once again providing food for pursuing other messages that just might not be recorded. Peggy
31 December 2025 @ 4:18 am
Thanks, Marianne! Your preaching always inspires me!
31 December 2025 @ 5:07 am
Thanks, Marianne, for lifting up the women in the Bible so beautifully. Our own
imaginations will have to fill in the missing details.
31 December 2025 @ 5:08 am
Thank you Sr Marrianne! Your courageous words delight my heart. We are always called into communion with God, with Jesus, with Mary and invited to embrace our charism regardless of our gender.
Creation has need of both the divine feminine and divine masculine. The imbalance of those has brought about thousands of years of wars. My understanding is that it is time to allow the balance of masculine and feminine and in so doing we heal the very fabric of our beings, our lives and relationships. ????
31 December 2025 @ 5:12 am
Marianne, thank you !! Your words always
Inspire !!!
31 December 2025 @ 1:04 pm
Thanks Marianne! I’d love to sit down at table with you with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and muse about how much more women contributed to and actually influenced biblical history that never was recorded! not to mention church history!
At least Pope Francis brought us to the tables of conversations at the Synod! Was anyone recording?