CELEBRATE SUNDAY
WITH ST. MARY'S
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
The promised savior is here.
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT
The Sunday before Christmas is the fourth and last Sunday of Advent, when the final candle is lit on the Advent Wreath and when we mark the final gathering of our community before Christ’s eventual coming. In a matter of a few days, the promise given to Adam and Eve immediately after the Fall, the promise of a savior who would strike at the head of the serpent and be born to the woman, will be fulfilled when Christ comes to us as one of us. This final Sunday before Christmas is when we hear one last significant story that leads up to the birth of Christ in the Gospels, one that prepares us well for understanding the arrival of our Lord. In this year’s reading cycle, that story is the great mystery of the Church, the Visitation, when Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
READ THIS SUNDAY'S MESSAGE
In the Joyful Mysteries upon which we reflect when praying the rosary, this scene of Scripture is the second. We recognize these Mysteries as significant moments in the life of Christ and his Church, and we call them "mysteries" because the nature of these scenes reveal important truths about our faith directly from a revelation from God. The “mystery” of the Visitation lies more so in why it was important enough of an event to take place before the birth of Christ. There are many questions that should arise when we hear this story. How close were Mary and Elizabeth that Mary would travel more than 80 miles while pregnant to see her cousin? Why did Mary visit Elizabeth? Why is this the story that we hear right before Christmas? Mary and Elizabeth are not the only figures present in this Gospel. Their relationship, although they might be cousins, is united not by a familial bond or a bond that would be developed by plenty of time spent together, but by the sons whom they carry in their wombs at this moment. Mary is pregnant with Jesus and Elizabeth is pregnant with John, and it is John who first recognizes Jesus by leaping in his mother’s womb. As Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, it first fills John as he recognizes that Christ is near. This scene encapsulates the entire identity of John, who is a personification of the season of Advent itself: before Jesus came to us on Christmas day, John recognized him. Before Jesus revealed himself through his mission, John recognized him. John’s prophetic spirit, the spirit of one who prepares the way for the Lord, is spread to his mother, who prepares her own home for the coming of the Savior’s mother, the woman who bears the Promise.
Mary and Elizabeth may not have been close at all. Some scholars believe that they were distant cousins, their age difference was vast, and they lived far apart, all details revealing a distance between the two figures. But Mary did not undergo a long and tiresome journey while pregnant just to simply visit with Elizabeth; she went to Elizabeth by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that their sons, while still in their wombs, would be united for the first time by the same Spirit that would bring them together at the Jordan River 30 years later at Jesus’ baptism. This is the Mystery of the Visitation, the divine Truth of our theology revealed to us by God on the nature of Advent. This story is the last Sunday Gospel we hear before the birth of Christ because it is the first story of “Advent”. If Advent means waiting, watching, and preparing excitedly for the coming of Christ, this story places us in the position of both Elizabeth and John: proclaiming the blessedness of the woman who bears the Promise, and having our hearts leap at the nearness of our Savior.
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