Homily
4th Sunday of Advent
St. Lawrence Catholic Center
20 December 2009
For daily readings, click here
Two improbable pregnancies were both going well. The birth of two miracle children, literally, was about to take place. Who can blame these two women for wanting to get together in person? If nothing else, these two women were the only women of their time to know the sex of their babies - in advance! Not through a sonogram, mind you, but through the unassailable technology of direct angel testimony! Who could blame Mary for running in haste to see for herself that Elizabeth's pregnancy was going well, and vice versa? It is quite natural to want to share both the anxiety and the hopeful anticipation that a pregnancy brings. I understand that women oftentimes have a lot to talk about in such circumstances! How much more intense is the visit that we encounter in this morning's Gospel, between women expecting children in such unpredictable circumstances. One who was thought to be barren, the other who conceived not through a man, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. Part of the excitement of expecting a child is trying to find out as much as we can about the child before he or she is born, and to try to create some prediction of when the child will come and what he or she will look like. But these women literally had no idea. There was nothing ordinary or predictable about these pregnancies. Even John the Baptist got into the enthusiasm, with his 'hello Jesus' somesault in the womb of Elizabeth!
The joy of these two women, and the intensity of their visitation, comes from their having let go of their own expectations of how life would go for them. Neither of these women were able to plan the pregnancies they were now experiencing. These pregnancies, both of them, were not something these two women did, but was something that was literally done unto them. In fact, we see that Mary found favor with God precisely because she was the worst planner in the world! Blessed of all women, she was the one most ready not to tell God how she expected her life to go, but to let it be done unto her according to His word. This is not to say that Mary did not have dreams for her life, but it is to say that she was the most ready of all women to sacrifice those dreams in order that she might believe that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. In this, Mary is the mother and queen of all vocations, which always require a sacrifice of our expectations in order that God may do something even greater in us. So saying that Mary was the worst planner ever is to say that she was most ready to accept the plan of God in her life.
In these finals days of Advent, we must let these two women free us from our expectations as well. Their lives had changed so much in the last year, and so have ours. These women's lives were about to change so much more, and so are ours. But to experience the mystery of Christmas as profoundly as these two women were blessed to experience it, we must like them let God move us beyond our expectations of how things will go tomorrow. They didn't know what it would be like to give birth to the greatest man ever born of a woman, and to give birth to the Son of God. We do not know what tomorrow will be like either, nor is it good for us to know. It is better for us to wait in hope and expectation and yes, joy, like them. May we never turn into the people who have to control tomorrow, or who are afraid of the newness and excitement that tomorrow brings. Tomorrow may indeed bring adversity, but it will also bring joy, for God is coming to visit us tomorrow, in just as improbable a way as He came to Mary and Elizabeth. When the Lord comes to visit us, may He find us excited enough to leap like John the Baptist, knowing that we too will soon see the face of God, like He did, if only we can shed the fear of not knowing how exactly He will come. He will come in a way and at a time, that we least expect, and because Mary was truly ready for this, God came to her, and she was chosen of all women to be the first to see the face of God!
Mary, make us as ready as you were for the birth of your Son, as He desires to come visit us once again wherever we are in the holy days ahead, as surely as He once came among us in the humble circumstances of Bethlehem. May we be as surprised and ready to receive Him today in the Holy Eucharist as you were surprised but ready to believe that what was spoken you by the Lord would be fulfilled. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Amen. +m
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