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From: Judges 13:2-7, 24-25a

Samson, God’s Nazirite from His Mother’s Womb

[2] And there was a certain man of Zorah of the tribe of the Danites
whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children [3]
And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her,
“Behold, you are barren and have no children; but you shall conceive
and bear a son [4] Therefore beware and drink no wine or strong drink,
and eat nothing unclean, [5] for lo, you shall conceive and bear a
son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the boy shall be a
Nazirite to God from birth; and he shall begin to deliver Israel from
the hand of the Philistines.” [6] Then the woman came and told her
husband, A man of God came to me, and his countenance was like the
countenance of the angel of God, very terrible; I did not ask him
whence he was, and he did not tell me his name; [7] but he said to me,
‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; so then drink no wine or
strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the boy shall be a Nazirite
to God from birth to the day of his death.”

[24] And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the boy
grew and the Lord blessed him. [25a] And the Spirit of the Lord began
to stir him.

Commentary:

13:1-21:25. History repeats itself once more (cf. 13:1): infidelity
causes the Israelites to lose the Lord’s favor. On this occasion they
fall foul of the Philistines, a Mediterranean people who had come down
the coast and on to the plains of Canaan; their military strength
proved superior to Israel’s. However, God again decides to send a
liberator--Samson, of the tribe of Dan.

The story of Samson begins with the announcement of his birth; his
parents are told that he will be a Nazirite, consecrated to God, from
his birth (13:2-24), The account goes on to portray Samson as a rather
empty-headed person (14:1-19), and reports various feats which show
that God endowed him with a physical strength which enabled him to
deal with his people’s enemies, despite his personal defects
(14:20-16:3). Still, he will end up being seduced by Delilah and
revealing to her the secret or his strength: as a result he will fall
into the hands of the Philistines and he imprisoned (16:4-22).
Eventually his hair will grow back and he will avenge himself for how
he was treated, losing his own life in the process but causing the
death of many Philistines (16:23-31).

After narrating the story of Samson, the sacred writer again tags on
some other stories as an appendix. To his account of the deeds of
Deborah he attached the ancient canticle celebrating her victory; and
after the death of Gideon he described in detail the (failed) coup of
Abimelech, one of Gideon’s sons. Now he brings in two stories which
are similar in so far as the protagonist in each is a Levite and both
men were given hospitality by Ephraimites. Their connection with the
history of Samson is through the tribe of Dan, to which Samson
belonged. The first of these two accounts (17:1-18:31) is connected
with the migration of the tribe of Dan (from their original place, in
the Shephelah, beside where the Philistines were in control, towards
the north of the country, to the slopes of the mountains of Lebanon),
and the protagonist is a Levite,who is taken in first by a man of
Ephraim and later by the Danites (17:1-18:31). The second story deals
with another Levite given hospitality by an Ephraimite in Gibe-ah, but
the Benjaminites of that city want to sexually abuse him and they
ill-treat his concubine so badly that she dies. This sparks a
concerted attack on Benjamin by the other tribes which almost wipes
out the Benjaminites (19:1-21:25).

Both episodes show ever more clearly the internal anarchy affecting
the tribes of Israel and the decadent state of morality to which they
have been reduced; there is no one capable of re-establishing
order--as the text repeatedly says, “in those days there was no king
in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes” (17:6 and
21:25; cf. 18:1 and 19:1).

Thus, the book draws to a close by illustrating that, despite the
exceptional patience and mercy of God who constantly forgave his
people for their unfaithfulness and raised up one savior after
another, Israel continued to sin against him. Therefore, they could have
no reason to complain against God if he left them at the mercy of
their enemies. When the sacred writer was gathering all these ancient
traditions during the Babylonian exile and composing this book in its
present form, he made it quite clear that they could not blame the
course of events on the Lord or argue that his power had weakened:
history shows that they themselves were to blame for what happened.

13:2-25. Samson’s vocation was decided by God from even before he was
conceived. This account has a structure similar to that of the calling
of Gideon (6:11-23). God sends his angel to a woman who is barren and
tells her she will have a son (v. 5), who will be consecrated to God
as a Nazirite (cf. Num 6:1-21 and its note), and he will perform a
specific mission--to save his people from the Philistines. In this
account, vocation, dedication to God and mission are all closely linked.

The main features of vocation are outlined here. The initiative comes
from God who sees his people’s predicament and prepares, from birth
onwards, a man who will save them from their enemies. In due course he
announces his plans through a messenger: an angel presents
himself to the wife of Manoah (v. 3)--she sees him as a “man of God”
(v. 6)--and he tells her about God’s plans. The couple’s readiness to
go along with God’s will is plain to see (vv. 8 and 12). As happens in
some supernatural communications, in special circumstances the Lord
offers some remarkable sign to demonstrate that the message indeed
comes from him and that what he says will happen (cf. 6:2 1; Lk 1:20, 36).

Some of God’s ways of acting to be seen in Gideon’s vocation (6:11-24)
are also found in the annunciation to Mary (cf. Lk 1:26-38). The way
Manoah and his wife make themselves available for God's plan to work,
as also Mary's great refinement and generosity in doing the divine
will, are messages to the reader of God's word in Scripture--to check
his or her own readiness to go along with God's plans.

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: Luke 1:5-25

The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold

[5] In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named
Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. [6] And they were both
righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless. [7] But they had no child, because Elizabeth was
barren, and both were advanced in years.

[8] Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was
on duty, [9] according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him
by lot to enter the temple of Lord and burn incense. [10] And the
whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of
incense. [11] And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing
on the right side of the altar of incense. [12] And Zechariah was
troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. [13] But the angel
said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard,
and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his
name John. [14] And you will have joy and gladness, and many will
rejoice at his birth; [15] for he will be great before the Lord, and he
shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with the
Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. [16] And he will turn many of
the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, [17] and he will go before
him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
to make ready for the Lord a people prepared."

[18] And Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am
an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." [19] And the angel
answered him, "I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I
was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. [20] And
behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these
things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will
be fulfilled in their time." [21] And the people were waiting for
Zechariah, and they wondered at his delay in the temple. [22] And when
he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had
seen a vision in the temple; and he made signs to them and remained
dumb. [23] And when his time of service was ended, he went to his
home.

[24] After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months
she hid herself, saying, [25] "Thus the Lord has done to me in the days
when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among men."

Commentary:

6. After referring to the noble ancestry of Zechariah and Elizabeth,
the evangelist now speaks of a higher type of nobility, the nobility of
virtue: "Both were righteous before God." "For not everyone who is
righteous in men's eyes is righteous in God's; men have one way of
seeing and God another; men see externals but God sees into the heart.
It can happen that someone seems righteous because his virtue is false
and is practiced to win people's approval; but he is not virtuous in
God's sight if his righteousness is not born of simplicity of soul but
is only simulated in order to appear good.

"Perfect praise consists in being righteous before God, because only
he can be called perfect who is approved by Him who cannot be deceived"
(St. Ambrose, "Expositio Evangelii Sec. Lucam, in loc.").

In the last analysis what a Christian must be is righteous before God.
St. Paul is advocating this when he tells the Corinthians, "But with me
it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human
court. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce
judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to
light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes
of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God"
(1 Corinthians 4:3ff). On the notion of the just or righteous man, see
the note on Matthew 1:19.

8. There were twenty-four groups or turns of priests to which functions
were allocated by the drawing of lots; the eighth group was that of the
family of Abijah (cf. 1 Chronicles 24:7-19), to which Zechariah
belonged.

9-10. Within the sacred precincts, in a walled-off area, stood the
temple proper. Rectangular in form, there was first a large area which
was called "the Holy Place", in which was located the altar of incense
referred to in verse 9. Behind this was the inner sanctum, called "the
Holy of Holies", where the Ark of the Covenant with the tablets of the
Law used to be kept; only the high priest had access to this, the most
sacred part of the temple. The veil or great curtain of the temple
separated these two area from one another. The sacred building was
surrounded by a courtyard, called the courtyard of the priests and
outside this, at the front of the temple, was what was called the
courtyard of the Israelites, where the people stayed during the
ceremony of incensing.

10. While the priest offered incense to God, the people in the
courtyard joined with him in spirit: even in the Old Testament every
external act of worship was meant to be accompanied by an interior
disposition of self-offering to God.

With much more reason should there be this union between external and
internal worship in the liturgical rites of the New Covenant (cf.
"Mediator Dei", 8), in the liturgy of the Church. Besides, this
consistency befits the nature of man, comprised as he is of body and
soul.

11. Angels are pure spirits, that is, they have no body of any kind;
therefore, "they do not appear to men exactly as they are; rather, they
manifest themselves in forms which God gives them so that they can be
seen by those to whom He sends them" (St. John Damascene, "De Fide
Orthodoxa," 2, 3).

In addition to adoring and serving God, angelic spirits act as God's
messengers and channels of His providence towards men; this explains
why they appear so often in salvation history and why Sacred Scripture
refers to them in so many passages (cf., e.g. Hebrews 1:14).

Christ's birth was such an important event that angels were given a
very prominent role in connection with it. Here, as at the
Annunciation to Mary, the archangel St. Gabriel is charged with
delivering God's message.

"It is no accident that the angel makes his appearance in the temple,
for this announces the imminent coming of the true Priest and prepares
the heavenly sacrifice at which the angels will minister. Let it not
be doubted, then, that the angels will be present when Christ is
immolated" (St. Ambrose, "Expositio Evangelii Sec. Lucam, in loc.").

12. "No matter how righteous a man be, he cannot look at an angel
without feeling afraid; that is why Zechariah was alarmed: he could not
but quake at the presence of the angel; he could not take the
brightness that surrounded him" (St. John Chrysostom, "De
Incomprehensibili Dei Natura"). The reason for this is not so much the
angels' superiority to man as the fact that the grandeur of God's
majesty shines out through the angel: "And the angel said to me, `Write
this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the
Lamb.' And he said to me, `These are true words of God.' Then I fell
down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, `You must not do
that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the
testimony of Jesus. Worship God'" (Revelation 19:9-10).

13. Through the archangel God intervenes in an exceptional way in the
married life of Zechariah and Elizabeth; but the message he brings has
much wider reference; it has significance for the whole world.
Elizabeth is already quite old but she is going to have a son who will
be called John ("God is gracious") and he will be the forerunner of the
Messiah. This showed that "the fullness of time" (cf. Galatians 4:4)
was imminent, for which all righteous people of Israel had yearned (cf.
John 8:56; Hebrews 11:13).

"Your prayer is heard," St. Jerome comments, "that is to say, you are
given more than you asked for. You prayed for the salvation of the
people, and you have been given the Precursor" ("Expositio Evangelium
Sec. Lucam, in loc."). Our Lord also sometimes gives us more than we
ask for: "There is a story about a beggar meeting Alexander the Great
and asking him for alms. Alexander stopped and instructed that the man
be given the government of five cities. The beggar, totally confused
and taken aback, explained, `I didn't ask for that much.' And
Alexander replied, `You asked like the man you are; I give like the man
I am" ([Blessed] J. Escriva, "Christ Is Passing By", 160). Since God
responds so generously and gives us more than we ask for, we should
face up to difficulties and not be cowed by them.

14-17. The archangel St. Gabriel gives Zechariah three reasons why he
should rejoice over the birth of this child; first, because God will
bestow exceptional holiness on him (verse 15); second, because he will
lead many to salvation (verse 16); and third, because his whole life,
everything he does, will prepare the way for the expected Messiah
(verse 17).

In St. John the Baptist two prophecies of Malachi are fulfilled; in
them we are told that God will send a messenger ahead of Him to prepare
the way for Him (Malachi 3:1; 4:5-6). John prepares the way for the
first coming of the Messiah in the same way as Elijah will prepare the
way for His second coming (cf. St. Ambrose, "Expositio Evangelii Sec.
Lucam, in loc."; St. Thomas Aquinas, "Commentary on St. Matthew", 17,
11, "in loc."). This is why Christ will say, "What did you go out to
see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he
of whom it is written, `Behold, I send My messenger before Thy face,
who shall prepare Thy way before Thee'" (Luke 7:26-27).

18. Zechariah's incredulity and his sin lie not in his doubting that
this message has come from God but in forgetting that God is almighty,
and in thinking that he and Elizabeth are past having children. Later,
referring to the conception of John the Baptist, the same angel
explains to Mary that "with God nothing will be impossible" (Luke
1:37). When God asks us to take part in any undertaking we should rely
on His omnipotence rather than our own meagre resources.

19-20. "Gabriel" means "might of God". God commanded the archangel
Gabriel to announce the events connected with the incarnation of the
Word; already in the Old Testament it was Gabriel who proclaimed to the
prophet Daniel the time of the Messiah's coming (Daniel 8:15-26,
9:20-27). This present passage deals with the announcement of the
conception and birth of Christ's Precursor, and it is the time same
angel who will reveal to the Blessed Virgin the mystery of the
Incarnation.

24. Elizabeth hid herself because of the strangeness of pregnancy at
her age and out of a holy modesty which advised her not to make known
God's gifts prematurely.

25. Married couples who want to have children, to whom God has not yet
given any, can learn from Zechariah and Elizabeth and have recourse to
them as intercessors. To couples in this situation [St] Monsignor Escriva
de Balaguer recommended that "they should not give up hope too easily.
They should ask God to give them children and, if it is His will, to
bless them as He blessed the Patriarchs of the Old Testament. And then
it would be advisable for both of them to see a good doctor. If in
spite of everything God does not give them children, they should not
feel frustrated. They should be happy, discovering in this very fact
God's will for them. Often God does not give them children because He
is `asking more'. God asks them to put the same effort and the same
kind and gentle dedication into helping their neighbors as they would
have put into raising their own children, without the human joy that
comes from parenthood. There is, then, no reason for feeling they are
failures or for giving way to sadness" ("Conversations", 96).

Here is the authoritative teaching of John Paul II on this subject: "It
must not be forgotten, however, that, even when procreation is not
possible, conjugal life does not for this reason lose its value.
Physical sterility in fact can be for spouses the occasion for other
important services to the life of the human person--for example,
adoption, various forms of educational work, assistance to other
families and to poor or handicapped children" ("Familiaris Consortio",
14).