Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C
FMicah 5:1-4a
Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19
Hebrews 10:5-10
Luke 1:39-45
Amid the final scramble to prepare for Christmas, maybe you have found that the calming Advent message of patient hope can easily get lost. St. Luke’s Gospel relates that the Blessed Mother “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste.” She’s rushing, too … so we’re in good company. The very moment a zealous St. John the Baptist hears the greeting from the womb, he leaps immediately. St. Elizabeth herself gets impassioned, crying out to greet her holy visitors. The Biblical scene seems to give us a little leeway for some excitement in anticipating the birth of the Messiah.
Notice that all that hurrying achieves a holy purpose. The hill country heights always symbolize being away from the world and close to the Lord above. The time that Our Lady spends with Elizabeth certainly had a primarily contemplative character, a retreat-like atmosphere. Good St. Joseph, who no doubt would have been along on the trip for safety’s sake, remains characteristically quiet. Even the anxious St. John must be content to relax for a while. What a good seasonal reminder for us all!
Everything in the Gospel suggests quiet, humble simplicity. We have an unnamed village, a tiny tribe, a small family visit, two expecting mothers. No flashy laser-light shows or blowout shopping extravaganzas. All that theatrical holiday enthusiasm spikes the energy and then crashes like having too much sugar. The Biblical outlook focuses on the normal necessary things like travel and hospitality done with appropriate gusto but the right ultimate intention in mind.
Our frenetic restlessness in the buildup to take care of all the essential practicalities is perfectly normal and completely understandable, but often miserable. Perhaps they serve as a kind of sign of our desire to honor the Lord on the upcoming feast of His Nativity. Let’s try to ensure that the natural plane truly remains the launching pad to the supernatural.
That tracks the course of the overarching schema of Scripture, as well as our Catholic faith. The Lord’s divine design uses ordinary means in extraordinary ways. Supernatural sacraments are built on simple substances. Marvels of holiness do come to those who faithfully await, and sometimes that is painful, boring, stressful, distressing, or demanding. “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” St. Elizabeth’s exclamation might well be directed to the whole Church, and all of us members of it. God keeps His promises.
The whole Advent-Christmas tension itself is explained by this phenomenon of grace perfecting nature, the glorious bursting forth from the plain, particularly when we keep in mind the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah: “You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel … his greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth.” He appears subtly at first, and then with full grandeur only after the time is right in His Providence, ultimately to be completed in His foretold Second Coming.
Meanwhile, the relentless, elaborate temple rituals had been feverishly offered, admittedly “according to the law” as the second reading notes, but Christ obediently fulfills those prefigurements: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.” The Father planned for His Son to take on human flesh so that it might be offered on the Cross for our salvation and enshrined in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. In this, we have the perfect model for our own humble cooperation in union with Him, so that we can say, “ … we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.” There is no way to be closer to Him than in the Holy Eucharist. Has that been missing somehow for you? One of the verses omitted from the Psalm today laments to the Lord: “You have fed them the bread of tears.” That’s true enough, in so many ways, for the Hebrews and for us, but now we get to feast on the Bread of Life. That is worth all our good efforts to celebrate well at Christmas, the Mass of Christ.
Has this Advent, a blessed but short stretch, sped by too quickly again for you this year? There will be days of relative tranquility coming. Plan to spend some good time with Our Eucharistic Lord. Consider all the challenging material-minded scurrying about as a preparation for a calm, restful, and meditative Christmas season.