'Galium' most probably comes from the Greek 'gala' meaning milk. When dried this plant smells pleasantly of new-mown hay, and is said to discourage fleas. No wonder it was once widely used for loose bedding and mattress stuffing. It suggests two threads for meditation. The first concerns Elizabeth's pregnancy.
" 'And Mary stayed with her about three months.' (Lk 1:56)
For any pregnant woman in ordinary circumstances, the physical and emotional support of a beloved female relative can be a tremendous consolation. But these were no ordinary circumstances, and the caring helper was the most extraordinary female in creation. Elizabeth alone among women, has the mother of her Lord as ante-natal nurse. Bedstraw makes me think of the paliasses on which they may have slept. Anyone who has experienced the immobility and discomfort of later pregnancy will easily imagine Elizabeth's gratitude as Mary helped her to lie down at night and get up each morning. But I have absolutely no doubt that to Mary and Elizabeth, and indeed to Zechariah, the spiritual significance of what was happening to them was of paramount importance. All three, because of their background and the fact that Zechariah was a priest, would have been steeped in the law and prophecies of the Old Covenant, and in the genealogy of their families. During the months of Mary's stay, it is hard to believe that thy did not re-read and discuss these things, Zechariah communicating by sign language and writing; impossible to think that they did not pray, privately and together over the texts. If they considered Isaiah 51, they must have known that the prophet speaks of the salvation of Sion by the son Mary will soon bear. And if these God-chosen, God-inspired people saw any political relevance to their own time in the prediction, it would have been of secondary importance.
"But prophecy is a prism. What you see depends on how you turn it to the light. And today, holding this particular jewel of Isaiah's in the palm of my hand, I see Mary, and even Elizabeth: 'He will comfort all her waste places, he will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song' (Is 51:3)"
copyright Jane Mossendew 2002
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