Learning From Mary, Advent Personified, How To Prepare For Her Son’s Birth, Fourth Sunday of Advent (C), December 22, 2024

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Parish, Manhattan
Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C
December 22, 2024
Mic 5:1-4, Ps 80, Heb 10:5-10, Lk 1:39-45

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided today’s homily:

• As the last students on campus make plans to return home or to travel to nearby family and friends to celebrate Christmas, we have a chance today to learn from the Word of God how we should be approaching these last days of Advent and preparing for the celebration of Christmas. Christmas always has a mission. And the great teacher the Church gives us to prepare for that mission is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Every year on the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church has us focus on the Mary, not just because she has an obviously unforgettable role in the birth and life of Jesus. The real reason that the Church places her before us as Christmas nears is because she is the model of how we should be living Advent well. Mary is, in some sense, advent personified. God the Father had prepared her from the first moment of her life to be a worthy mother of his Son. Like a faithful daughter of Israel, she had prayed throughout her youth for the coming of the Messiah. When she was a young girl, she discovered that she was part of God’s answer to that prayer, but in a way that would far have exceeded any Hebrew maiden’s petitions: not only would the Messiah be her son, but her son would also be Creator, Savior and God. Her “yes!” to the Archangel Gabriel launched the proximate preparation for the birth of the Messiah, who would be God’s eternal only begotten Son and, in the greatest of all mysteries, also hers. On this fourth Sunday of Advent each year, we explicitly follow the footsteps Mary traced on that first Advent. In doing so, we’re doing more than traversing the physiological and historical events that preceded the Lord’s birth. We’re entering into Mary’s response of faith that is a guide for us along our own pilgrimage of faith. And so with the Lord, let us climb within Mary’s womb and listen to the beat of her contemplative heart, which was treasuring within this greatest of all mysteries, so that our Christmas may be as fruitful as that first Christmas.
• Today we travel with Mary to Ein Karim, the birthplace of St. John the Baptist, to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. During the Annunciation, after the Archangel Gabriel had told Mary that the power of the Most High would overshadow her and she would conceive in her womb a Son whom she would call Jesus, Gabriel told her as well that her cousin, Elizabeth, had also conceived a son in her old age. As soon as the Archangel departed from Nazareth, Mary, too, made plans to leave. Although she was still a young teenage girl, probably only 14 at the time, she “went with haste” to take care of her elderly kinswoman who was pregnant for the first time. We know, today, that if a woman is pregnant in her 40s, there are many health risks. It is likely that Elizabeth was much older than that and ancient middle eastern health care was nothing to brag about. Without question, Elizabeth would have needed some help. But notice that the Angel didn’t command Mary to go to help her. He didn’t even suggest that it would be a good thing for her to go. He just stated the fact that Elizabeth was pregnant and that was enough for Mary to spring into action. Mary’s love spawned in her the desire to help out. And so, this young girl who had just become the Mother of God, set out on a great adventure.
• Ein Karim was located 4.5 miles outside of Jerusalem, which was 60 miles from Nazareth. For Mary to get there, first she would have had to walk about 40 miles downhill into the plains of Jericho, then very steeply uphill for about 20 miles to the Holy City of Jerusalem, before crossing the Holy City and descending to Zechariah’s house. None of that apparently scared her. We don’t know if she traveled alone in the typical caravan of pilgrims. There’s no evidence that St. Joseph accompanied her, or her parents Saints Joachim and Anne. While we don’t know with whom she traveled, we do know that she journeyed with incredible faith. During her trek, there was no way she could have known humanly that she was pregnant. Jesus would still have been the tiniest embryo in her womb, probably eight or sixteen cells according to his human nature by the time she left, well before an infant had legs to kick. She could only have known she was pregnant by faith in Gabriel’s words. Doubtless along the journey, she was meditating on what the Angel had said to her and how all of the prophecies of the Old Testament were being fulfilled in her. She was adoring within the One who would eventually be born, as today’s first reading from the Prophet Micah foretold, in Bethlehem-Ephrathah, whose origin was from of old, from ancient times and who would be peace incarnate, rule in Israel and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord and his majestic name; the One who, as we prayed in the Psalm, would make us turn to God, allow us to see his face literally and be saved; the One who, as the Letter to the Hebrews states in the second reading, had from her taken on a body, who had assumed our humanity, in order to do his Father’s will and offer that humanity in order to make salvation possible. All of this together would lead, after hearing St. Elizabeth’s greeting, to her soul’s proclaiming the greatness of the Lord and Savior growing within her, the Mighty One who had done great things for her, who had looked upon her humility and exalted her, who had remembered his mercy and had come to help not only Israel his servant but the whole human race.
• In going to Ein Karim, Mary became the first missionary, the first bearer of the Good News that would change all of human history, forming Jesus to be the itinerant preacher he would become even before he had developed the tiniest of feet. Mary was able to bring incredible joy to Elizabeth and to the fetal John the Baptist, because she was bringing Christ. And Mary was able to burst out with joy in her famous hymn of praise, the Magnificat, during this scene for precisely the same reason. This brings us to the first of three lessons we can learn on this fourth Sunday of Advent: to bring joy to others this Christmas, we really have to bring them Christ. Jesus is the greatest gift that we can ever give to someone we love. This is something all of us need to remember especially at Christmas. We can buy others all types of clothes, gadgets, experiences, things and toys, but if we aren’t trying to give them the Lord Jesus, then we’re really giving them little more than monopoly money. We can send out hundreds of cards and letters, but if we’re not praying for those we write that they come to the Lord, and if we’re not trying to help them to encounter Jesus with our meager words, then, to a large degree, what we’re sending is not much better than junk mail. Unless we try to bring Christ to them, we’re really not giving them anything of lasting value. Mary didn’t bring Elizabeth ancient Hebrew pregnancy textbooks; she wasn’t bringing John the Baptist a cute little circumcision outfit; she was bringing Christ and, hence, she was bringing them everything!
• Today Mary wants to bring us Christ here at Columbia in the same way she brought him to Ein Karim. She wants us to learn from her example and to inspire us to bring her Son to others with great haste and joy this week as we prepare for Christmas on Wednesday. We all know people who need Jesus in their lives, who need his mercy, who hunger for his love and his presence, perhaps without even being conscious of it. But many of us can behave like spiritual Ebenezer Scrooges, selfishly keeping our relationship with Jesus to ourselves, and not sharing the greatest Gift we’ve ever received with anyone. Mary’s example shows us the way to live Advent well, and explicitly challenges and calls us to bring Jesus to those we will meet during these days. Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say that her entire life was a constant Visitation, going with haste to bring Christ and his love to others. All of us as Christians are called to make of our life a Visitation, too. That’s the adventure the Lord wants to live as we go on mission to our homes, to our friends who will be hosting us, and to everyone we encounter.
• To bring Christ, we need to learn a second key lesson. We see in the Gospel this Sunday that as soon as Elizabeth heard the sound of Mary’s greeting, John the Baptist leaped in her womb, Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she burst out saying: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. How has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? … Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” The Holy Spirit inspired Elizabeth to bless Mary among all women because of two things: the blessed fruit of her womb and her faith that the Lord’s words to her would be fulfilled. In other words, she was blessed because of her embryonic Savior and Son and because of her faith in him. That’s the second key lesson we can grasp about this Advent pilgrimage with Mary: that the greatest blessings in this world are Jesusand our faith in him. These are the gifts we should be longing for this Christmas, because these are the ones that will truly make us happy. Even if we were to receive for Christmas the entire inventory of multiple Amazon warehouses, that would not be as valuable to us as the gift of God and the gift of increased faith in him. It is important for us to grasp how much God wants to be able to praise and bless us for our firm faith that all that he has promised us will be fulfilled. Mary cried out in her hymn of praise later in this scene, “All generations will call me blessed.” And that prophecy came true. We still call her blessed today, for the same reasons, because “the Lord — the blessed fruit of her womb — is with her,” and because of her faith, which is the model for every disciple’s. As we prepare for Christmas, the Lord is calling us to make these our priorities. The Father who gave us the gift of his Son that first nativity wants to give us that Son anew this Christmas, to be God-with-us, Emmanuel — but he wants us to ask for him in faith and respond to him in faith, by making the time to be with God in prayer, by saying “let it be done to me according to your word,” and by allowing the Lord’s words to be fulfilled in us in all the decisions we make. These last days before Christmas are days in which we should be begging God the Father to increase our faith so that we may make his Son the fundamental reality of our life, so that his birth might impact us just as much as his birth impacted the life of Mary and Joseph, who gave their lives to him full-time within their vocations as a construction worker and home maker. Sometimes we can celebrate the birth of Jesus like we celebrate the baptism of a cousin or the child of friends. It’s a moment of great joy but then we leave. The birth of Jesus, however, is supposed to impact us the way a baptism impacts the lives of the baby’s parents! But for that to happen, we need the faith to recognize that God-with-us has come into the world and remains in the world to be our full-time, 24/7 God.
• For that transformation to occur, we need the third and last lesson we’re called to learn and emulate from Mary during that first Advent. As soon as Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, blessed her, Mary’s contemplative heart exploded in prayer: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior!” Mary’s response to the blessing of God’s love in coming into this world, into her heart and into her womb, was not just faith but prayer, which was once called by Pope Benedict faith-in-action. If God doesn’t just exist but is really God-with-us, then our response in faith should be prayer, to be-with-God. The Advent Preface every priest in the world prays this Sunday stresses the irreplaceable importance of prayer in preparation for Christmas. The Church prays: “It is by his gift that already we rejoice at the mystery of his Nativity, so that he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise.” Mary’s heart was filled with this wonder and praise. Her soul magnified the Lord and her spirit rejoiced in God. Our soul and spirit are called to do the same. God wants to help us to magnify him, to rejoice in his love and to thank him for all his blessings. Only the soul that does not magnify itself, as St. John Paul II once said, can magnify the Lord, and that can only happen when we center our lives on God and not on ourselves, or on material possessions, or anything or anyone else. If we were to ask Mary our Mother for the best way to prepare for the celebration of her son’s birth at Christmas, she would doubtless say that the most important is going to her Son in prayer, to live concretely in our life what we will sing in a few days and come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord. That’s the gift he most wants from each of us for the celebration of his birthday. That’s what Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi, the angels, and even the animals gave him. That’s where the adventure of Advent, personified by Mary, is ultimately meant to lead, in this world and forever.
• Please permit me one last thought about the Visitation. I mentioned earlier that St. Teresa of Calcutta said that her life was a constant development of the second Joyful Mystery of the Holy Rosary and how each of us in our own way is called to live out that mystery, bringing Christ to others and doing so with haste, in a rush, with great urgency and zeal. As I celebrate with you my last Mass as the Catholic chaplain at Columbia, I look back over these last five semesters as an unfolding of that mystery, as I sought, with a certain impatience, to bring to you Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, his mercy in the Sacrament of Confession, his Word and teachings in homilies and various lectures, his counsel in spiritual direction, his friendship and affection in day-to-day interactions, his accompaniment during dark valleys and his joy in celebratory verdant pastures. I’ve tried, in short, to incorporate Columbia’s motto, to bring you the light of Christ and to help you see all things in his light, so that, transformed and illumined, you may become in him a light on this campus and, with him, the Light of the World. Whether this work has borne any fruit is the Lord’s to determine and the result of his grace. But that’s been my intention. I thank you for having received me like Zechariah and Elizabeth received Mary! And as I leave to take on full-time the role of National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, I will be striving to help the whole Church in the U.S. live out the Mystery of the Visitation, seeking to take Christ to 1,150 mission territories throughout the globe. Please pray for these efforts, that the same Christ whom Mary brought to Ein Karim I can help the Church bring to everywhere Christ still waits to be known, loved and served.
• We come now to the climax of the Christian life and the source and the summit of every university chaplain’s work, the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. The same Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary in Nazareth will soon overshadow me and overshadow this altar. The same Jesus whom Mary carried in utero to her cousin Elizabeth comes to us today in Holy Communion. Through Mary’s intercession, may we do what she did after the Annunciation — after what St. Teresa of Calcutta called her “first Holy Communion” when she received her Savior within — and live out well the noble adventure of the Christian life no matter how young we are, bringing Jesus out to others this Christmas and beyond, so that the incarnate Joy to the World can make them, and us, leap again!

The readings for today’s Mass were: