Fourth Sunday of Advent

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

First Reading: Micah 5:1-4a “He shall shepherd His flock…He shall be peace.”

Psalm: 80  “Lord, make us turn to You; let us see Your face and we shall be saved.”

Second Reading: Hebrews 10:5-10  “Behold, I come to do Your Will.”

Gospel: Luke 1:39-45  “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Today the prophet Micah prophesies a time when God will come to His people, a cause for great rejoicing. Micah served God at the same time as the prophet Isaiah, during the reign of King Hezekiah, about 800 years before Jesus came. He foretells the coming of the Messiah, “one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.” This will happen “when she who is to give birth has borne,” referencing the Blessed Virgin Mary. What are the hallmarks of the coming Messiah? “He shall…shepherd His flock…in the majestic Name of the Lord…He shall be peace.” Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd, and He offered His peace to the Apostles and disciples who were present when the Risen Christ came into the Upper Room. This peace is offered to us as well at every Mass: “Peace I leave you; My peace I give to you.” Then we offer that Divine Peace to each other in an exchange of the theological virtue of charity. As we prepare our hearts to receive the infant Jesus, let us reflect upon the peace that He gives us, which surpasses all understanding, and which we are called upon to share with one another.

Today’s Psalm calls upon “the shepherd of Israel” to listen to us from His “throne upon the cherubim.” It begs the Lord to come to save us – and He did! Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, came down from Heaven to save His people from their sins. He took “care of this vine” and protected “what (His) right hand had planted.” The Psalm cries out “Give us new life, and we will call upon Your Name.” He has given us new life by rising from the dead; He conquered death. We imbibe this new life in baptism and with the worthy reception of the sacraments. How do we worthily receive the sacraments? By being in a state of grace and by our reverent awareness of His Real Presence in the Eucharist. We receive sacramental grace in each sacrament. We can also be infused with sanctifying grace, a participation in God’s own life. What a gift – new life, indeed!

The Second Reading comes from the Letter to the Hebrews. It quotes Jesus: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a Body You prepared for Me…behold, I come to do Your Will, O God.” We are in the body, being corporeal, and we are also part of the Mystical Body of Christ. We are called to do God’s Will. A great way to accomplish God’s Will is to live Jesus’ two great commandments: Love God with everything in us and love our neighbor as Jesus loves us. The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy help us to love our neighbor in tangible ways. You might be doing these Works of Mercy and not even know it! The Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; shelter the homeless; visit the sick and prisoners; bury the dead; give alms to the poor. The Spiritual Works of Mercy: counsel the doubtful; comfort the sorrowing; admonish sinners; instruct the ignorant; forgive injuries willingly; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the dead. These Works of Mercy sometimes involve sacrifice, it is true, but this is the acceptable sacrifice to God. He no longer desires animal sacrifice. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the perfect example of this: we offer bread and wine, an unbloody sacrifice, and the priest, through the power of the Holy Spirit, confects the Eucharist so that it becomes the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Risen and glorified Lord Jesus Christ. Let us strive to do God’s Will with the Works of Mercy and by worshipping God reverently in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

St. Luke narrates Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. St. John the Baptist, in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy as the Holy Spirit fills him. There is so much to say about this interaction! Mary “traveled to the hill country in haste” just as King David did when he went to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant. Mary is seen as the new Ark of the Covenant because she held within her womb everything that was in the Ark. She carried the Word of God, as the Ark contained the tablets of the Word of God, the Ten Commandments. Within her womb lay the True Bread from Heaven, as the within the Ark lay some of the manna, bread from Heaven. The True High Priest nestled within her, as Aaron’s budded rod, the proof of his high priesthood, was placed within the Ark of the Covenant.

Elizabeth’s exclamation: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” ought to sound familiar to us. We repeat these very words when we pray the Hail Mary. Mary is blessed to have been chosen by God to be the Mother of God. She is the Mother of God because she gave birth to Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. This term, “Mother of God,” does not intimate that she pre-existed God or that she is greater than God. It is a frank acceptance of the fact that she gave birth to the Second Person of the Trinity, God. Jesus is fully God and fully Man; He is one Divine Person with two natures: divine and human. Mary did not give birth merely to His human nature; no one gives birth to a nature. Women give birth to a person – in Mary’s case, the Second Person of the Trinity.

Mary is also blessed because she is “full of grace.” When something or someone is full, there is no room for anything else. Mary, being filled with grace, had no room in her soul for sin; therefore, she is blessed. She is blessed, too, because she heard the Word of God and believed. We, too, are blessed when we hear the Word of God and believe. Jesus prayed this in His High Priestly Prayer at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John, chapter 17:20:  “I pray not only for them (His followers), but also for those who will believe in Me through their word.” That’s us! We believe because we have heard the Word of God passed down from the Apostles to our modern-day priests and bishops. Hopefully we also believe because we have encountered Jesus in the Mass, in the sacraments, and in prayer. My prayer for you as Advent winds down and we prepare to celebrate Christmas is that you will encounter Jesus in a very real way and will know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world so that you might be eternally happy with Him in the next.