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Yesterday I was lucky enough to hear the singing sensation of the moment, the tenor Freddie de Tommaso, sing at the Royal Opera House in its production of Tosca. We weren’t expecting to hear him, but illness has meant the Opera House has had to rearrange its cast scheduling. The changes began in the most dramatic way: when fellow tenor Bryan Hamel fell ill halfway through the night of the premiere, De Tommaso was asked to step up, even though he was not due to perform the role in front of an audience for the first time until three days later. He willingly did so and brought the house down. Others who are stepping up at the moment are those who are helping with the current campaign to get people their Covid vaccination boosters. Last week the appeal went out, as crowds descended on vaccination centres. These volunteers, unlike the Covent Garden tenor, got no applause or standing ovation but they too willingly heard the call. Thanks to them offering their services to keep the centres open and running, thousands upon thousands of people have been jabbed as part of a collective effort to combat the impact of the Omicron variant. Yesterday, in Catholic and Anglican churches, another story of stepping up was told during the Gospel reading. Congregations listened to Luke’s account of Mary’s trip to see her much older cousin Elizabeth, who was far into her pregnancy. Scripture scholars say the journey to Elizabeth’s home would have taken four days: a tough ask for the teenage Mary, also expecting a child. And that pregnancy itself was due to her immeasurable, resounding yes: to be mother to God made man. Without her, there would be no moment when God came into the world, through the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Mary’s yes came about through her faith, a faith expressed to Elizabeth when they meet, with some of the most memorable words spoken by a woman in the Christian Gospels. Known as the Magnificat, it is a series of verses of exultant praise. In these words Mary describes a world transformed by God by a series of reversals. He exalts the humble and meek, she says, he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away. But God does not transform the world alone. Humanity needs to respond. That is the significance of the story of this young girl, 2000 years ago. Without her, Christians believe that there would have been no redemption, no Jesus. Change, reversals, transformation, redemption: they all need people to heed a call and step up.