FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT C

[cappie]

In the month of May, the church keeps a feast known as the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The gospel reading on that occasion is the one we just heard, the story of pregnant Mary’s visit to her elderly relative Elizabeth, who is herself pregnant with John the Baptist, so we hear that visitation story again on the final Sunday of Advent, in preparation for Christmas.

Mary has heard the angel’s monumental message that she is to be the mother of the Messiah, the other parent to the Son of God. In an exercise of the bravest faith and submission, she agrees. Mary agrees to this remarkable and scandalous motherhood. It seems she has been brought, all in a rush, to a stone wall. But her faith finds a door.

 Now she is on the road to Elizabeth’s home, a house in the hill country. Why does she go? We do not know. But the meeting of these two pregnant women is thick with surprises.

It is common for babies to move in the womb in ways their mothers can feel. But John in his mother’s womb did much more. He leaped for joy! When Mary called out upon her arrival, John jumped in the womb of old Elizabeth. The Holy Spirit then filled Elizabeth, and she cried out to her visitor, “ Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

 Here we have the older woman offering extravagant honour to the younger one, a teenager mysteriously pregnant. Yes, the world is turning upside down! The old era, which Elizabeth represents, has not much time left. The new era, ushered in by Mary, is about to dawn.

“Of all women you are the most blessed and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth is the first to utter this acclamation, which becomes a favorited Christian devotion down through the centuries.

She then says more. She asks: Why has it happened that my Lord’s mother has come to visit me? As soon as I heard your greeting, the baby inside me jumped for joy! You’re blessed, Mary, because of the child you carry. You’re blessed, Mary, for believing that what the Lord told you would come true.

Here the older woman does not bless the younger but recognizes that the younger woman is already superabundantly blessed. Yet we who know what will follow recognize that this blessing will also have a downside. A sword of anguish will pierce the heart of blessed Mary. She will cradle the baby at Bethlehem, yet years later she will cradle her dead son at Golgotha.

For it seems that, in some mysterious way, this reflection on Mary unlocks the door to Christian joy.

That joy rings out in ancient hymns – Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac – many of them modelled on Mary’s own song.

It sounds forth in the work of Anglican poets and preachers, among them Henry Vaughn, who calls out:

Bright Queen of Heaven! God’s Virgin Spouse
The glad world’s blessed maid!
Whose beauty tied life to thy house,
And brought us saving aid.

This joy   shines in stone in medieval cathedrals named for Our Lady.

Yes, reflection on Mary unlocks the door to Christian joy. Mary,  she invites us to delight with her in the God who turns the world upside down, who saves us through this girl’s courage.

Mary always points us to her Son, the one redeemer. Her existence reminds us that we can be as she is: the faithful disciple, the one who brings Christ to birth, the soul espoused to God.

Without such joy, Christianity is ever in danger of becoming less than itself, falling into respectable dullness or mean-spirited fanaticism. However,  in this joy of Mary Christianity becomes confident, the rich with hope for this world and the next.

We live in a time when people ache for such a hope. May we help them find it in the liberating God who is the subject of Mary’s song and the centre of Mary’s life.