December 20^th 2015. FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

GOSPEL                                    Luke 1:39-45

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(Translation of a homily by Don Fabio  Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio)

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel.

GOSPEL                                    Luke 1:39-45

Mary set out
and travelled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah, 
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb, 
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, 
cried out in a loud voice and said, 
“Blessed are you among women, 
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, 
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”

THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . This Sunday’s Gospel highlights the fact that the Christian life is not an ethical system of following prescriptions! It is about being filled with the Spirit, as Mary was, and going forth to spread the happiness to others. New life has just been generated in Mary, and God generates new life within us too by pardoning us, by touching us with his word, by consoling us. Each one of us has received promises from the Lord, and in the same measure as we open ourselves to these promises, the life of God begins to burn inside each of us. The logic of the eruption (or flowering) of the life of God into our personal existence involves the following steps: a promise is made to us and we are asked to believe it; then the promise is brought to fulfilment by the work of Providence. If we trust in God’s life-giving action within each of us, then we too will be blessed as Mary was! As Elizabeth says, blessed are we if we believe! Blessed are we if we trust in the goodness of God, if we open ourselves to the paternity and fecundity of God! Let us repeat the sentiment again: to the same extent as we open ourselves to the promise and blessing of God, to that extent are we filled with the life of God. Mary is the living proof of that!

The Christian life is not an ethical system of following prescriptions! It is about being filled with the Spirit, as Mary was, and going forth to spread the happiness to others.

The first reading on Sunday speaks of him who will come forth from Bethlehem Ephrata, the one who has remote origins and who will rule over Israel with the power of the Lord. In this last part of Advent 2015, we see that it is God who takes the initiative. He is not motionless but is a dynamic, creative source of life. In the Gospel passage, we hear of Mary’s actions as soon as she has finished speaking with the Angel. She has just become pregnant but despite all the transformation that this entails, she rises “in haste” to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. When God enters into our hearts, we too begin to take the initiative. The Christian life is not an ethical system that is directed towards avoiding doing anything objectionable. If someone says, “I live a good life. I never commit serious sin”, this by itself is not sufficient. If that were sufficient, then the chair I’m sitting on could be considered a good Christian. Our life must involve initiative. The Christian life is not about defence or about avoiding ugly things. It is about doing beautiful things, about having a happy desire to go forth and act, as Pope Francis often reminds us. The Gospel tells us that Mary “arises” – this is the same verb as is used in the resurrection. The word “in haste” is a translation from a Greek word that really means “with zeal”. Mary goes with zeal to her cousin’s side. She wishes to do something positive and beautiful. We see all the happiness of a woman who is pregnant and wishes to share the news with someone. She carries something that she does not wish to keep just for herself.

God generates new life within us by pardoning us, by touching us with his word, by consoling us

The Christian cannot be someone who does things out of obligation or scruples. Instead we must be people who act because we have experienced great joy, great love, great tenderness; people who wish to communicate what they have experienced with others; who wish to say “Look at the beautiful things that have happened to me!” Christianity cannot be promoted by presenting it as a repressive system! It is something that is full of affirmation! Too often we have been overly-concerned with defending ourselves. Sure, the faith must be defended, but the best way to defend it is to present it, announce it, shout it aloud. The beautiful things we have in our Christian memory! The number of times that we have experienced the Lord’s mercy! The number of times that he has generated in us a life that we would not have been able to generate ourselves. The word of the Lord reaches us, surprises us, and generates in us an extraordinary newness, places the Spirit within us, consoles us.

Each one of us has received promises from the Lord, and in the same measure as we open ourselves to these promises, the same life of God begins to burn inside each of us

Elizabeth feels the child within her leap with joy. This child of only six months is already capable of that thing that we must search for with perseverance in life – joy. In the last line of the Gospel, we discover the secret of all of this life and joy that is expressed in the reading. Elizabeth says, “Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Mary had replied to the angel: “Be it done onto me according to your word”. These words express a great desire on Mary’s part that God’s promise come to fulfilment in her. Each one of us has received promises from the Lord, and in the same measure as we open ourselves to these promises, the same life of God begins to burn inside each of us. The logic of the eruption (or flowering) of the life of God into our personal existence involves the following steps: a promise is made and we are asked to believe it; then the promise is brought to fulfilment by the work of Providence. God, after all, is the one who know how to bring such promises into concrete fulfilment. As Elizabeth says, blessed is the one who believes; blessed is the one who trusts in the goodness of God, who opens oneself to the paternity and fecundity of God; blessed is the one who opens herself, who trusts that God can create in her a new life. When we celebrate Christmas, we believe that God can be born in the midst of us, at the heart of our lives, in our epoch, our society. We do not follow Christianity as a philosophical system. Our belief is that our flesh can be the flesh of Christ. In the Eucharist we celebrate the fact that his body can become our body. We are bearers of Jesus in our daily lives. A greater joy than this does not exist.