Fourth Sunday of Advent: Today’s readings: Micah 5,1-4a; Hebrews 10,5-10; Luke 1,39-45
Two women meet and are on a high… but not the kind of high we’ve been hearing about of late. Theirs is not the illusory and transitory narcotic effect one gets from smoking weed, which quickly fades away, causing the smoker to have to come back to a stark reality. Rather, their sense of elation stems from the beauty of reality itself. How couldn’t they feel so ecstatic? As Elizabeth was embraced by Mary, the former marvelled at God’s victory over her sterility, while the latter rejoiced at God’s unprecedented ingression into humanity.
Elizabeth was dumbfounded by the fact that her husband Zechariah had not merely been dumbstruck, but had effectively been rendered completely dumb for his unbelief. Her encounter with Mary now continues to shed light on the strange occurrences happening, and both are shown to be women of faith who were becoming increasingly aware of God’s dealings with them and with the world. Here, we find no competition between these two pregnant women. None of them pushes past the other or tries to be head and shoulders over the other by boasting of how important and indispensable her child is to the human race.
Elizabeth must have known from Zechariah what a great mission had been assigned to her hitherto unborn child. And yet, upon seeing Mary, she immediately acknowledged the superiority of Mary’s child to be born, him whom she instantly professed as her Lord. A woman’s womb had been made capable of receiving God himself, who thereby made it his dwelling place until his appearance in human form.
Mary’s faith predisposed her to allow such a mystery to unfold in her body. God’s plan was such – and it always is each time a human being comes into existence in the womb – that that unborn person already had a specific identity, a precise calling.
Even before those few cells appeared and began developing into a full-fledged human body, God knew the person they would be. In truth, every woman requires faith in order to understand that the life within her womb is part of God’s loving design for which he is to be praised.
Every woman requires faith in order to understand that the life within her womb is part of God’s loving design
Mary was rightly called blessed among women. From a biblical perspective, the term blessedness has connotations of transcendent happiness or religious joy. A profane way of putting it would be to speak of someone being fortunate or lucky. Wishing someone luck is tantamount to auguring that the unknown dynamics of fate will, by some chance, turn out in their favour.
But invoking a blessing or recognising blessedness is an acknowledgment that God is the source of such favour. This is not a question of personal success or achievements, but the reception of divine benevolence which is entirely his prerogative to endow.
Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez.In The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson made this claim: “When we ask for God’s blessing, we’re not asking for more of what we could get for ourselves. We are crying out for the wonderful, unlimited goodness that only God has the power to know about or give us.” The blessedness which was Mary’s had to do precisely with her faith, that is, her complete acceptance of God’s offer made to her. Hence, Elizabeth exclaimed: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!”
That holy embrace which Mary and Elizabeth were locked in was a sublime moment celebrating God’s blessings, namely the gift of life, even divine life, and the joy of the Spirit. We couldn’t ask for a more pertinent icon that celebrates both the sanctity of human life in the womb and the Spirit of God as the true source of authentic elation. What a high!