Sunday, December 22, 2024

Homily for 4th Sunday of Advent

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Advent

Dec. 22, 2024
Luke 1: 39-45
Heb 10: 5-10
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

By Master of Spes Nostra, ca. 1500
(
Rijksmuseum)

“Blessed are you who believed that what the Lord spoke to you would be fulfilled” (Luke 1: 45).

Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, pronounces 2 blessings upon the Virgin Mary, who has just conceived the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, without any human intervention except her own consent to what God has asked of her (1:31-38).

Elizabeth’s 1st blessing singles Mary out among all women because she carries in her womb the Lord.  The Greek word that Luke uses here is Kyrios (cf. Kyrie, eleison), the Old Testament word for God, the creator and ruler of the universe, the Lord God of Israel:  “the mother of my Lord has come to me” (cf. 1:43).  That maternal vocation is unique to Mary; she alone is the mother of the Lord.

Elizabeth’s 2d blessing is based on Mary’s faith:  “You believed the Lord’s word to you would be fulfilled.”  The word that God spoke to Mary thru Archangel Gabriel was unique, but faith isn’t unique to Mary, nor is this blessing uniquely hers.

In faith, Mary submitted her will and, literally, her body to what God desired:  “I’m the Lord’s handmaid, his humble servant.  Let what you’ve said be done to me” (1:38).  Mary, Jesus’ 1st disciple, places her entire self, her entire future, in God’s hands.  That’s why she’s the most blessed of all women—and not only of women, but of all human beings other than her Son.

Every disciple of Jesus can be blessed by God, as well, by submitting to God’s will.  Given our moral weakness, we can’t do that as totally as Mary did.  But that’s what we try to do.  We try to surrender our will, our future, yes, even our bodies to God—to his plan for us, to his intention, to his will—as we pray in the Our Father:  “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  That prayer has to mean us, not just everybody else:  “May your will be done in me!”

How do we submit our bodies to God’s will?  In the reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, Christ is praised for offering his body as a sacrifice to God:  “A body you prepared for me; … behold, I come to do your will, O God” (Heb 10:5,7).   Christ surrendered his body to death on the cross, and he has also surrendered his body to us in the Eucharist.

We aren’t likely to be crucified because we’re disciples of Jesus (altho hundreds of people are assaulted and sometimes killed every year because they’re Christians).  But we are called to surrender our bodies—to sacrifice them—and our wills, our total selves, to God.  The 1st way can do that is by accepting the ordinary aches and pains of life instead of complaining about them.  We do what we can, very properly, to dodge pain and illness—with exercise, a healthy diet, medical care.  But we can’t dodge everything—aching muscles, headaches, sickness, bone injuries, weariness, the frailty of age, even the bother of getting out of a warm bed earlier than we’d like to.  We surrender ourselves to God and accept these necessary, inescapable trials.

The 2d way we give our bodies and our wills to God is by following his plan for our sexuality.  We reserve its exercise and enjoyment for marriage.  We heed God’s plan that marriage is between one man and one woman, a lifelong commitment to one’s spouse.  In marriage spouses are partners—with Christ in the partnership, helping husband and wife together to pursue holiness.  (That’s why Bp. Fulton Sheen wrote a book called Three to Get Married.)  We avoid pornography and “sins of the flesh,” and seek God’s healing grace in confession if we fall into sin.  Married couples keep their intimacy open to new life and don’t artificially block conception.  Contraception is a refusal to submit one’s body to God’s will.

A 3d way in which we give our bodies and our wills to God is by using our voices, our hands, our feet, and our talents to praise God, to speak the truth, to stretch out our hands to assist people in need, e.g., by teaching our children, helping someone with a chore, feeding the hungry, tending the sick, visiting older relatives, speaking kindly to others, even by giving someone a smile.  Getting our tired bodies to church on Sundays, singing the hymns, and speaking the responses too!

Blessed are you who believe that the Lord will fulfill his words to you, his words that promise us everlasting life thru our being disciples of Jesus, like his Virgin Mother.

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