22 Dec 2024 – 4th Sunday in Advent, C
22 Dec 2024 – 4th Sunday in Advent, C
1st Reading: Micah 5:2-5
Salvation would come from insignificant Bethlehem — to unite the nation under God
The Lord says this: But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth, and he shall be the one of peace.
Responsorial: Psalm 79: 2-3, 15-16, 18-19
R./: Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.
O shepherd of Israel, hear us,
shine forth from your cherubim throne.
O Lord, rouse up your might,
O Lord, come to our help. (R./)
God of hosts, turn again, we implore,
look down from heaven and see.
Visit this vine and protect it,
the vine your right hand has planted. (R./)
May your hand be on the man you have chosen,
the man you have given your strength.
And we shall never forsake you again:
give us life that we may call upon your name. (R./)
2nd Reading: Hebrews 10:5-10
Only Christ, our supreme High Priest, can effect reconciliation between us and God
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will, O God’ (in the scroll of the book it is written of me).”
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “See, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Gospel: Luke 1:39-44
Elizabeth recognises the unique child that Mary carries within her
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
Holding our breath
The readings invite a final pause, one further holding of the breath, before the birth of Jesus. The Visitation, in particular, with its explicit and implied encounter(s), may help us reflect on all the encounters of this season, not forgetting “the” encounter to which we are all invited.
Honouring the Madonna
When a mother is expecting, all the focus is on her health. She gets loads of advice — ‘be careful,’ ‘don’t lift that’ and ‘don’t forget your afternoon nap.’ Once the baby is born the main attention moves to the baby — ‘who does she look like?’ ‘what name will you give him?’ …and so on. So on this last Sunday before Christmas the Gospel is focussed on Mary, the expectant mother, and in particular, on her visit to her cousin, Elizabeth.
One could say that Mary is even more honoured in the Eastern Church than she is in the West. In the West, after the 16th century reformation, many Protestants stopped honouring Mary. Many shrines were levelled, stained glass windows were broken, statues of Mary shattered, pictures of the Madonna burnt. Still, not all Protestants disowned Mary. A frequently quoted line about her is where William Wordworth refers to her as ‘our tainted nature’s solitary boast.’ Martin Luther had a lifelong devotion to Mary and even kept a picture of her on his desk, though many Lutherans seem unaware of this.
All Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, like to meditate on the Magnificat, that prayerful song brimming over with anger at the way the world is tilted against the poor. It is Mary’s cry for justice: He has filled the hungry with good things/ And sent the rich away empty. This is Mary who inspires all followers of her son to challenge injustice also in our own time and place.
Two great women
The two pregnant women in our Gospel today are different in age, yet both full of joy and concern for each other. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth because of the dangers attendant on so late a pregnancy. That she went with hasted, halfway across the country, to make the visit is a clear sign of Mary’s generosity and goodness. Through the light of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognised Mary’s privilege as the mother of the longed-for Messiah. She greets Mary in the words we are so familiar with in our Hail Mary. And Mary responds in the equally familiar words of the Magnificat. These two great women understand the miracle of conception and birth. But in each case there was divine intervention in a truly exceptional way. The Gospel says that both were informed of this fact by the words of an angel; they each had a message from God telling them so.
The fact that these two women had this divine intervention is a reminder that our own lives too are a gift of God; what we might call ordinary grace. It is from this understanding that the Church takes its position on all life issues.
At some moments we may recognise the hand of God in our lives. Maybe at the point when we felt we had a priestly or religious vocation or when we finally decided on our partner in marriage. Maybe it was at the birth of a child, a change in job circumstances, or the death of a parent. Maybe it was a moment in prayer, the grace of a sacrament, advice in the confessional, wise words from a friend or relative at a critical moment.
God continues to work with us and for us. God takes the long view and there are periods of seeming barrenness, seeming aloneness. But these are all part of that gestation which is life on earth. We were born into this world and we will be reborn into eternal life.
Every now and then like John the Baptist we leap in this womb which is our life on earth. Every now and then we recognise God’s presence, as John recognised Jesus’ presence, and we leap with joy. But life is always moving on and God is always with us. It was God caused us to come into being, who sustains and feeds us, and who will welcome us into life eternal. As well as the birth of Jesus, we celebrate our own birth too at Christmas — a birth, a life that flows towards death and final resurrection.
Mary Embodies Hope
At school we revered Wordsworth and had memorized “Upon Westminster Bridge,” “Daffodils” and “The Solitary Reaper,” but the line we heard most often was from an obscure sonnet: “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast”—taken as an example of a Protestant poet upholding the Immaculate Conception. The proclamation of the Assumption of the BVM in 1950 and the centenary of the Immaculate Conception in the Marian Year of 1954 made Assumpta, Concepta, and Immaculata popular girls’ names. The origin of all this lies in today’s gospel, when Mary is saluted by her cousin who exclaims: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?… Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!”
Mary’s reply speaks of promises not only to herself but to Israel. The Prophets had filled their hearers’ minds with joyful expectation of a coming Saviour, and Mary takes up their message, now brought to fulfilment, as she stands forth in sinless radiance:
“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name…..
He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”
There is a German expression for a pregnant woman: “of good hope.” Mary is the very embodiment of good hope—the hope of herself and Elizabeth, the hope of Israel, the hope of the entire human race, no longer “poor banished children of Eve” but encouraged to “lift up their heads, for their salvation is near at hand” (cf. Lk 21:28). Vatican II integrated Mariology into its theology of the Church, in the last section of Lumen Gentium, altering the perspective of the dogmas of Pius IX and Pius XII, so that Mary now stands with us as we strain forward in joyful hope toward the coming of our Saviour.
Everywhere and at all times the birth of a child is a moment of joy, a new beginning, a reinvestment in hope. “Hope does not disappoint us” (Rom 5:5). Many children are swept away in horrible wars or by poverty, a terrible blasphemy against hope. Do the divine promises, and their joyful reception by prophets of hope, hold any weight over against the horrible disappointments of present history, where arrogant violence and greed trample unimpugned on the weakest? Despite all, we are thrilled by Mary’s prophecy still:
“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”
The downbeat, cynical tone of so much thinking and writing today needs to be checked, and we should not let its toxic influence affect our minds. Just as a baby opens its eyes on the wonder of the world, ready to explore it with joy, guided by its loving parents (as the child Jesus is guided to the Temple by his), so we need to open our eyes of hope with the same innocence and freshness, ready to start again, becoming as little children and entrusting ourselves to the heavenly guidance that the God of Abraham offers us.
To be sure we are not immaculately conceived, and carry a burden of sin, but we can be immaculately reconceived when God remembers his mercy and says to us: “Your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5). The Creator does not want his creatures to be paralyzed by sterile brooding on the past, but urges us to tune in to his creative force, to be lifted up by his grace, as we strive forward with confidence, putting forth new creative energies, and taking up afresh the battle for the Kingdom of God over against all the negative forces that cannot prevail against it.
Key Message
Mother Mary’s presence brings grace and peace!!
Homily:
In Sunday school, a teacher asked her class, “Why do you think that God was comfortable in choosing Mother Mary to be the mother of Jesus?” A little girl said, “Because she was the only one not complaining about her household chores”.
As we celebrate the visitation of our Mamma Mary, let us contemplate on the words of St. Elizabeth:
St. Elizabeth exclaimed:
“How did I deserve that the Mother of my Lord should come to me, Your servant?” She said this once the Holy Spirit revealed to her about the secret of our Mamma Mary. Our Mamma Mary never shared the secret of her pregnancy either to St. Joseph or to St. Elizabeth on her own. But God revealed this secret to them on behalf of our Mamma Mary, because it is an unbelievable secret. Once St. Elizabeth recognized that the Mother of her Lord had come to help her, her joy knew no bounds.
The Holy Angel revealed a huge miraculous message for Zacharias that they are going to become parents in their old age. Though it was a big blessing for him, Zacharias couldn’t believe it. Many times, when our waiting time is going to end, we lose our hope and are not able to accept our blessings. Like St. Paul we should be prisoners of hope. Never give up.
Testimony of an intercessor:
When I was praying for a family, where the father was very sick, I heard the whisper from the Holy Spirit – “Ask them to be hopeful”.
St. Elizabeth: “You are blessed, for the Salvation You have brought to the house of Jacob!”
Mamma Mary was carrying the Son of God, remembering that her child will suffer for the sins of the world. She offered this unique silent suffering for us.
St. Elizabeth:
You are blessed for the Holiness You have brought to my son, whom I feel leaping with joy, like a happy little kid, in my womb, because he feels free from the burden of guilt.
When Mamma Mary comes, Jesus also comes. When Jesus comes, our sin goes. Jesus in the womb of Mamma Mary sanctified John in the womb of Elizabeth.
Starting from His days in the womb of His Mother, our Lord Jesus continues His sanctification. Now whoever goes through His Mother Mary, as an obedient Son, He sanctifies. Let us go to Jesus through Mary. It is pretty easy.
Practical tips:
The first person to reach out for anything is our Mamma Mary. She covers us under her mantle and brings us near to Jesus. So talk and walk with our Mother.
The first face the eyes of baby Jesus saw, was our Mamma Mary’s face. Just gazing at her kind face brings us grace and peace.