4th Sunday of Advent

Gospel Reading: Luke 1:39-44

39 Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah.
40 She went into Zechariah's house and greeted Elizabeth.
41 Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord?
43 For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy.
44 Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be ful­filled’

Meditation

Each year the gospel passage for this Sunday is a story of Mary's pregnancy, and for this year it is the visitation. We meditate on this story as the second joyful mystery of the rosary, so that this could be an opportunity to go into it deeper than we usually can in saying the rosary; this would give depth to the way we say that prayer, which plays an important part in the lives of many people.

It is the story of two pregnant women and, therefore, an opportunity to enter into the symbolism of that experience, especially for those who have gone through it, seeing it as a symbol of how waiting can be a creative time, one when we express our love and one also when we can unmask all the self-centredness that is latent within us and blocks our ability to give ourselves wholeheartedly to others. Of course, it could also be a meditation on the sacredness of pregnancy itself.

Mary should be the main focus of our attention, a symbol at this moment of her life of the person of faith, and indeed of the church. Particularly significant is the expression 'blessed’ that is attributed to her by Elizabeth; we must give the word its full biblica1 meaning, indicating that a person has a great gift from God and also that he or she has brought blessings to others. Mary's blessedness in this passage is simply that she has faith, no great achievements or visible signs of God's favour -just faith.

Prayer

Lord, there was a time when we had a dream:

• one day we would finally succeed in giving up drugs or drink and lead a healthy, creative life;
• we would develop a talent for music we knew we had but had never been recognised;
• we would be friends with someone we were too shy even to speak to;
• we would play our part in making our country a more human and caring place.

The dream was there within us but very small, so that people looking at us would think that we would never change.
Then someone like Mary came into our lives, someone who also had a dream within her and so understood us.

There was something in her greeting - not what she said, just the tone of her greeting as it reached our ears –and in an instant the dream within us came alive, like John the Baptist leaping for joy in the womb of Elizabeth.

We felt confident that it would become a reality one day and we and the world would be different.
It was like being visited by a mother, not just an ordinary mother, but one who was giving birth to the presence of God.

A deep feeling of humility came over us; we felt blessed and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Lord, we think today of some girl who is pregnant and regrets this pregnancy.

Perhaps she has no one in the home to lean on; perhaps she is over-burdened with financial problems or finds that the child will block her career.

We ask you to send some Mary to visit her home, someone who has problems too but trusts that you will fulfil the hopes she has within her, and who will greet her in such a way that the child in her womb will leap for joy
and she will feel blessed and filled with your Holy Spirit.

Lord, as a church, we have achievements that we are proud of, great resources too that others admire us for:

• schools that many parents want to send their children to;
• an international network from which we get encourage­ment and financial support;
• an ancient and highly respected spiritual tradition and a host of great saints to whom we turn as personal friends.

But all that can make us arrogant. Help us rather to be like Mary, remembering that others have resources too, other churches, other faiths, other groups in society, so that we may visit them as Mary visited Elizabeth in the hill country, not with an ulterior motive or condescendingly, but just to greet them so that the moment the sound of our greeting reaches their ears they will rejoice in their gifts and in ours too.

Lord, there is a blessedness by which we experience great favours - when we pass an examination, get a promotion or overcome some bad habit.

Help us to recognise the blessedness of Mary that makes us the most blessed of all when we trust that the promises you make us will be fulfilled.
Great and wonderful things are born from that kind of blessedness.

Lord, we thank you for mothers in our country who had to struggle so hard to bring up their children well, and in spite of great oddshave managed their homes with dignity.

What kept them going was a faith like Mary's, the deep belief that you had planted certain convictions within them and  that these would be vindicated.

We have been blessed by having them among us, and many great people have been born as the fruit of their wombs.