The Fourth Sunday of Advent (2024)
Mary set out and traveled 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.”
—Luke 1:39-42
In these late Advent days, the Church shifts her focus from the advent of Christ at the end of time, to preparing to celebrate the Nativity of Christ at Christmas as we reflect on the richness of the Mystery of the Incarnation. In a reflection on the Incarnation, the bishop (and newest Doctor of the Church) Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (d. ca. 202) wrote that “God is man’s glory. Man is the vessel which receives God’s action and all his wisdom and power.” This Fourth Sunday of Advent, the liturgy invites us to reflect on and with Mary, who lived Saint Irenaeus’ vision of humanity as God’s “vessel” in an unparalleled way.
In the story of Mary’s visit to her elderly kinswoman Elizabeth, we are presented with two women who are living in expectation.
In Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary, carrying God-Incarnate within her, we discover the embodiment of the hopes and expectations of Israel. Theirs was a waiting full of promise and, as Henri Nouwen reflected, “People who have to wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow” (from the essay “A Spirituality of Waiting”).
This kind of waiting—Advent waiting—is never a movement from nothing to something. Rather, it is a movement from something to something more.
The story of the Visitation calls an ancient image symbol that our spiritual ancestors associated with the Mother of Jesus: the Ark of the Covenant.
For centuries, the Ark was a sign of God’s covenant promise to Israel. It was an icon of God’s presence, a reminder that God was in their midst, accompanying the people as they wandered through the desert and fought to claim a home and identity (see Exodus 25:21-22; Numbers 10:35-36). At the Annunciation, Mary became the new, living Ark of the Covenant, who carried God within her. In Mary, God was how present in a person, in a heart. And, just as David danced before the Ark of the Lord (2 Samuel 6:14), John the Baptist, still in Elizabeth’s womb, leapt for joy because the Lord had come.
In God’s own time, God had called the holy men and women and prophets—Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Ruth, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so many others—to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. In Mary’s Child, the promises, hopes, and expectations of God’s Chosen People were finally being fulfilled. As the Prophet Micah foretold: “From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel; whose origin is from of old, from ancient times… He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock” (Micah 5:1, 3a).
In these final days of Advent, Mary teaches us how to receive the Word of God, whose coming in history, mystery, and majesty we to celebrate at Christmas. As Pope John Paul II observed,
“She exhorts us, first of all, to humility, so that God can find space in our heart, not darkened by pride or arrogance. She points out to us the value of silence, which knows how to listen to the song of the Angels and the crying of the Child, not stifling them by noise and confusion. Together with her, we stop before the Nativity scene with intimate wonder, savoring the simple and pure joy that this Child gives to humanity” (Pope Saint John Paul II, Angelus, December 21, 2003).
It is truly right and just,
our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father,
almighty and eternal God,
through Christ our Lord.
For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him,
the Virgin Mother longed for him with love beyond all telling,
John the Baptist sang of his coming
and proclaimed his presence when he came.
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.
And so, with Angels and Archangels,
with Thrones and Dominions,
and with all the hosts and Powers of heaven,
we sing the hymn of your glory,
as without end we acclaim:
Holy, Holy, Holy...
-Preface II for Advent from The Roman Missal
