"I prayed for this child and the Lord granted my request." Anna had great faith and trust in God. She knew that her child was a gift from the Lord. Every child is a gift from God. This insight comes from faith and, where faith is lacking, the insight is also lacking. Without faith, not only is the insight lacking: many other concomitant insights also fall away and a less civilized and less humane world is the result. Children are treated as if they were a commodity. A gift cannot be demanded. If, then, a child is really a gift of God, strictly speaking no one has the right to have a child and all endeavours to have a child at any cost will sooner or later bring a great deal of unhappiness.

Like Anna, Mary also manifested great faith and trust in the Lord: not yet understanding everything about the "great thing" that God was doing for her, Mary nevertheless believed and in doing so attained a great blessing, as Elizabeth proclaimed in her "beatitude": "Blessed is she who believed that the promise made to her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Luke 1:45).