Pillar of Fire
One
Out of Egypt
In the Exodus, God set Israel free and gave them a visible sign of His presence and care: the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night. When the people saw Pharaoh and all his charioteers closing in, they were terrified. The sea was before them. Pharaoh’s army was behind them. Then “the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them… coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel.” (Exodus 14:19–20) Even still, the people panicked.
Then Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still.” (Exodus 14:13–14)
The Book of Wisdom tells us that the pillar of cloud and fire was a sign of the Holy Spirit. Describing what the Spirit did in the Exodus, Wisdom says, “She led them by a marvelous road; she herself was their shelter by day and their light through the night. She brought them across the Red Sea, led them through that immensity of water, while she swallowed their enemies in the waves then spat them out from the depths of the abyss.” (Wisdom 10:17–19)
So, the Holy Spirit, under the sign of the Pillar of Cloud and Fire, led, protected, and provided for Israel.
Two
Mt Sinai and the Ark of the Covenant
After the crossing of the Red Sea, Israel came to Mt. Sinai, where God gave them a new visible sign of the Holy Spirit, the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 25, God commanded Moses to build the Ark. When the Ark was completed in Exodus 40:34-35, the cloud overshadowed the Ark and filled it with the glory of the Lord, the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then we are told that “For the cloud of Yahweh rested on the Ark by day, and a fire shone within the cloud by night, for all the House of Israel to see. And so it was for every stage of their journey.”
The Ark was the visible physical sign that the Holy Spirit was carrying the Israelites through every step of the journey. At the end of forty years, Moses reflected on the entire journey. In Deuteronomy, he said, “In the wilderness, too, you saw how Yahweh carried you, as a man carries his child, all along the road you travelled on the way to this place.” 1:31
The Spirit carried them every step of the way.
Three
Annunciation
Everything in the Old Testament prefigures what Jesus and Mary would do for us in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit carried the Israelites through the Exodus under the visible sign of the Pillar of Fire and Cloud and the Ark of the Covenant. But then the Ark was lost forever. Why? Because God was preparing a better sign of the Spirit.
In the Annunciation (Luke 1:35), the angel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
The connection is deliberate. In the Greek translation of Exodus, the same verb is used to describe the cloud overshadowing the tabernacle that Luke uses to describe what the Holy Spirit does to Mary. The cloud overshadowed the dwelling place of God in the Old Covenant; the Holy Spirit now overshadows Mary.
What once descended upon a tent now descends upon a virgin. What once filled a wooden Ark now fills a living person. The message is clear: Mary is the New Ark of the New Covenant. She is the new visible sign of the Holy Spirit.
Four
Visitation
Luke draws a parallel between two events, the Ark coming to David in 2 Samuel 6 and Mary coming to Elizabeth in Luke 1:39, to teach us that Mary is the New Ark of the Covenant.
In 2 Samuel 6:2, “David arose and went to the hill country of Judah... to bring up from there the Ark of God.” In Luke 1:39 “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah.”
“And David said, ‘How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?’” While Elizabeth exclaims, “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
The Ark goes to the house of Obededom; Mary goes to the house of Zechariah. The Ark remains there for three months; Mary stayed for three months with Elizabeth. David and all Israel were rejoicing, while Mary proclaims her Magnificat. David Leaps Before the Ark; John leaps in the womb of Elizabeth.
The Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament held: The Word of God inscribed on stone tablets, Aaron’s priestly rod, a sign of the priesthood, and the manna, bread from heaven. Mary is the New Ark, the visible physical sign of the Holy Spirit.
Five
We are carried by Mary
In the New Testament, the visible sign of the Holy Spirit is not a pillar of fire or a wooden box. The sign of the Holy Spirit is a virgin and mother. Mary is the perfect human expression of the Holy Spirit. So profound is Mary’s expression of the Holy Spirit that St. John Paul II says that she is able to serve as the Holy Spirit’s maternal “face”: from the Cross the Savior wished to pour out upon humanity rivers of living water, that is, the abundance of the Holy Spirit. But he wanted this outpouring of grace to be linked to a mother’s face, his Mother’s.
Later in the same discourse, John Paul stated, “Calvary reveals the close and enduring link between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of Mary as mother…The link between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the motherhood of Mary emerges again at Pentecost, when she awaited with the disciples for the coming of the Holy Spirit…”(Now here is the takeaway in the words of John Paul he says) “therefore, as the bond with Mary grows deeper, so the action of the Spirit in the life of the Church grows more fruitful.”
John Paul just said that by developing a deeper bond, a deeper relationship with Mary, the action of the Spirit will grow more fruitful in our lives. So let me suggest a resolution. The Israelites would not take one step forward unless the Pillar of Cloud rose and led them. Let’s learn from them. Begin the day by consecrating yourself to Mary. Then, as you go through the day, ask her to inspire you and do your best to follow those inspirations. Learn to pause. Learn to ask. Let her carry you forward.