We are Christ's presence

The Odd Life of Timothy Green has just come out in DVD.  I saw it in the theater and liked it a lot.  It captures beautifully a couple's longing for a baby.  Jennifer Garner plays the wife who has not been able to get pregnant.  One of my sisters told me Sunday that she and her husband Ben Affleck were so moved by the film that they decided to have another child themselves.
Five years ago Jennifer Garner was in a terrific movie called Juno.  It's about a teenager who gets pregnant and decides to give her baby up for adoption.  Garner plays the woman who will be adopting the baby.  She runs into Juno in the mall.  While they chat Juno tells her that the baby just kicked and asks her if she wants to feel it.  Garner puts her hands on Juno's belly and kneels down in front of her and talks to the baby in Juno's womb.  She tells the baby how much she has wanted to have a child and how she looks forward to raising her.  It's a powerful scene.
Since seeing Juno this scene comes to mind when I read Luke's brilliant account (1:39-45) of the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, both pregnant.  Elizabeth says, "As soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb jumped for joy."  Elizabeth's baby is John the Baptist.  Already in the womb he has started his life-long work of calling attention to Jesus.
Mary, carrying Jesus within her, has come to help her cousin Elizabeth who is six month's pregnant.  The scene makes me think about Jesus' living within each of us and using us to bring joy to others by our goodness to them.  We are Christ's presence in our world.