Teenage girls

They're airheads.

They talk incessantly in that same annoying tone, mindlessly repeating the same expressions over and over again.

They don’t seem to have a serious bone in their bodies.

That is what many people think.

God thinks differently.

In today’s first reading (Isaiah 7:10-14), the great prophet Isaiah tells the King that a young, unmarried girl (the most basic meaning of the Hebrew word rightfully translated as “virgin” in this passage) will be the turning point of a new future to be established by God himself.

Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary men,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.

A teenage girl is also the center of today’s Gospel (Luke 1:26-38).

The Archangel Gabriel comes from the throne of God to visit her.

She alone is told of the greatest event in history: an event that is just about to happen.

This greatest event in history will have this teenage girl at its very center.

And then the Archangel waits: the greatest event in human history hangs upon what this teenage girl will say.

Mary said,
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”

Then the angel departed from her.

And this teenage girl in a small town became the mother of God.

May we never disrespect teenage girls or anyone else of whom the world thinks little.

May we encourage teenage girls (and anyone else in the shadow of low expectations) not to settle for the mundane and the everyday, but to strive for the glorious path that God has laid out for their lives and the even more glorious destiny that God prepares for his faithful ones.

By the grace of God, may we all walk in the ways of glory totally.