Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C)

As we begin this final week of Advent, expectancy fills the Gospel stories, and literally so as we hear in today’s Gospel. 

 

Back on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we heard the story of the Annunciation, in which God reveals to Mary the role He wishes her to take in salvation history. The Archangel Gabriel’s opening words were, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.”

 

Today we hear the story of the Visitation, in which humanity, in the person of Saint Elizabeth, recognizes this truth: that Mary is, indeed, full of grace, and that the Lord is uniquely with her. Elizabeth wastes no time with pleasantries, she proclaims with immediacy: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She then continues with: “… and who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Elizabeth’s unsolicited affirmation, her recognition of what the Archangel proclaimed, inaugurates the Church’s recognition of Mary’s central place in the Church. Obscure as she is, Elizabeth suggests Mary’s role as co-Redemptrix from the beginning, a title that the Church will pick up centuries later.

 

The late Father Richard John Neuhaus, in his book “Death on a Friday Afternoon,” notes: “It is not too much to say that Mary’s consent to the announcement of the angel, that she was to be the Mother of the Messiah, made salvation possible. To be sure, the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross made our salvation possible… but without Mary’s consent, could that have happened? Mary’s “fiat,” her “let it be…” inaugurated the central act of salvation history.”

 

The Blessed Virgin’s faith is not just a personal virtue for her own good, it gives rise to the New Covenant. Saint John Paul, in his encyclical “Redemptoris Mater” wrote: “Just as Abraham in hope believed against hope that he would become the father of many nations, so Mary, at the Annunciation, having professed her Virginity in the words, “How can this be, since I do not know man?…” believed that through the power of the Most High, by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, she would become the Mother of God’s Son in accordance with the angel’s revelation.”

 

So, the central human figure in salvation history now shifts from Abraham to Mary. Sons of Abraham are to find their truest identity in the Son of God, the Son of Mary.

 

In this Visitation story, we are given a peek inside the wombs of Mary and Elizabeth: the Gospel, as it were, in ultrasound. Here is how Saint Anselm describes this meeting:

 

“Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice,

but John the first to experience grace.

 

Whereas the natural sound of words rang in his mother’s ears,

John rejoices in the mystery of what the words meant.

 

Elizabeth felt Mary’s presence at her side,

John, the closeness of the Lord.

 

Elizabeth heard her cousin’s greeting,

John felt the presence of her Son.

 

The two women spoke of grace,

but their two sons experienced grace,

and communicated that gift to their mothers 

in such a way that, in a double miracle,

both women began to prophesy,

inspired by their sons.”

 

The dialogue between the two mothers-to-be reveals life as a blessing — and children as the best embodiment of this outlook. The children in their mothers’ wombs, dancing salvation into being, give the greatest pro-life witness one could imagine. What we have here is the Christian life in microcosm: the two women care for one another both physically and spiritually. They show us, in sharing their stories and in caring for each other, that God is encountered in both prayer and in good works.

 

Mary’s words at this meeting, her Magnificat: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…” expresses not only her outlook, but her whole plan of life. In her lowliness, this handmaid of the Lord shows her greatness — that God is at the center of her self-knowledge to the point of being ego-free as she continues, “…my spirit finds joy in God, my Savior.”

 

Here she demonstrates the three great Theological Virtues: faith, hope and charity, which are nearly perfected in her life:

 

She is a woman of hope

Because she believes in God’s promises and awaits the salvation of Israel, the angel can visit her and call her to the decisive service of these promises.

 

She is a woman of faith

Elizabeth recognizes this as she states, “Blessed is she who believed that the Lord’s promises to her would be fulfilled.” The Magnificat becomes a portrait of Mary’s soul; it is entirely woven from the threads of Sacred Scripture. Mary is at home with the word of God: she thinks and speaks with the word of God so that the word of God becomes her own.

 

She is a woman of love

We see this in her quiet gestures, in the house at Nazareth, and in her responsiveness at the Wedding Feast at Cana. In the end, when the disciples flee, Mary will remain at the foot of the Cross. Later, at the hour of Pentecost, they who first gathered around the Lord now gather around her as they await the Holy Spirit. In her faith, hope and love, Mary becomes the Mother of the Church. 

 

How, then shall we make this Gospel story our own? The pregnancies of Mary and Elizabeth come as a result of their openness to God’s Will, and becomes the context of God’s revelation of His divine love and His plan for them. For Elizabeth in her advanced years it is astonishing; for Mary in her youth and virginity, it is miraculous.

 

Our own bodilyness, then, becomes the locus and the context of God’s work in us. In the Letter to the Hebrews we heard, “When Christ came into the world, He said, ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.’” In Baptism, our bodies, graced by the Sacrament into Temples of the Holy Spirit, become Christ’s dwelling place in the world, second only to the Eucharist. While our souls are God’s life-force within us, they act within the context of our bodilyness — our senses — our capacity to reason. Our Lord, who took on our human bodilyness, instructs us how to redeem that bodilyness, our senses, our reason and thought.

 

The Lord says in today’s Second reading, “Behold I come to do your will, O God.” And he says this not once, but twice, which is significant because God will never demand of us that which He will not give us the Grace to accomplish. Our Lord’s “Behold I come to do your will” finds its perfect echo in Mary’s “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.”

 

The literal pregnancy conceived in Mary’s body by the virtue of her “Fiat,” her “Let it be done unto me…” gives birth to a sort of “spiritual pregnancy” in which those who who say “Yes” to the Father’s Will, will find the stirring of the Living Word — Our Lord Jesus Christ — dwelling deep within them. If we bear Christ within, the souls of others will begin to recognize Him. (Remember the dance of Jesus and John!) 

 

When we speak of God’s promise some will respond with incredulity and the suggestion of the privatization of religion, but others might find grace-responding-to-grace, a faith which, perhaps, once was theirs, will tug at their very souls, revealing and receiving God’s claim on the essence of their being.

 

The faith, hope and love of the Blessed Virgin Mary will come forward to those who are renewed in belief that the Lord’s promises would be fulfilled, and the lives of many can unfold as the next chapter in the Visitation Story.