“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth proclaims this to Mary in Luke’s Gospel. This amazing expression provides the foundation of one of our most familiar Catholic prayers. The "Hail Mary" As we await Christmas, pray the Hail Mary, ponder each line, giving praise to our Lord and asking the intercession of Mary, the Mother of God. The Gospel today gives us unique insight into Jesus and John’s mothers: Mary and Elizabeth, not only trusted the Lord, but placed their very lives in God’s hands. Mary, in a remarkable commitment to God, consents to bear Jesus despite all of the suffering, and complications that this decision will bring.
For me, the joy of the third Sunday of Advent started a week early. Last weekend, Greg and I spent the weekend with my family on Long Island, my sisters and brother, my niece and her five-year-old, Tommy. Tommy is in kindergarten at Holy Family in our hometown of Hicksville. He’s very proud of his school and parish and was eager to take us to Mass with him on Sunday. Over the weekend, he had been singing an Advent prayer he learned at school. Imagine these words to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star: “Advent is a time to wait; not yet time to celebrate.” When we got to Holy Family on Sunday, I noticed the Nativity set up near the main entrance. Tommy and I went over to take a look and I asked why he thought Jesus wasn’t in the manger yet. Expecting him to break into, “Advent is a time to wait; not yet time to celebrate…” I was surprised when he got all distressed and blurted out, “They must still be working on it!” He was clearly miffed, thinking someone had forgotten the baby Jesus.
We cannot absent ourselves from the challenges of life. Rather, we need to recognize how Jesus is being birthed in the secular history of our lives. This is such an important point. I don’t like and you don’t like the issues of sexual abuse and the cover up of these abuses. In 2018, this is the Church that Jesus chooses to be born into. We are called not to leave the Church. Rather, we are called to transform the Church and our world into the reign of God. That’s why Jesus came – to teach us how to transform our church and our world into the reign of God, which means where God’s love controls everything, guides everything, and we all live together in peace under that reign of the love of God. It is in the messiness and the questions and the fears of our lives that God chooses to be born. This is the story of the first Christmas and it is the story of Christmas in 2018.