22 December 2024 -4th Sunday of Advent "C"
Mi 5, 1-4; Heb 10, 5-10; Lk 1, 39-45
Homily
‘ In those days Mary set out quickly...’. These words immediately link Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth to the scene of her encounter with the Angel Gabriel, which ended with Mary's words: ‘ Let it be done to me according to your word ’. Between the two scenes, we might place the lapidary phrase from the Prologue to John's Gospel: ‘ And the Word became flesh ’.
What Luke recounts here are the first moments in the realization of the extraordinary mystery of God becoming ‘ flesh ’, that is, the mystery of the Incarnation (from the Latin caro-carnis: flesh). We could say that this whole passage in Luke is profoundly ‘ carnal ’, in the etymological and most beautiful sense of the word (and not in the superficial and sometimes rather vulgar sense that we can give it today). It could also be seen as the foundation of a theology of the human body.
Two women find themselves in each other's presence. Two pregnant women; in other words, two women who, from their flesh, have given birth to another being of flesh that they are still carrying in their womb -- (we usually translate this delicately as ‘in their womb’, but the Greek word koilia designates the belly, the entrails and, in the case of a woman, the uterus).
Now, it is not only the flesh of these two women and the flesh of the child that each of them is carrying that are present here. There is also the Spirit. And as soon as they greet each other, Mary's greeting communicates to Elizabeth the Spirit of the One she is carrying, and the child Elizabeth is carrying is already physically stirring in his mother's womb. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,’ said Elizabeth to Mary, "for when I heard thy words of greeting, the child leapt for joy within me". The communion between Mary and Elizabeth brought together the children they were carrying, and John's joy shows that he is already ‘filled with the Holy Spirit', as the angel had prophesied.
If Mary is the bearer of joy and the Spirit, it is because she has believed. How blessed am I,’ said Elizabeth, ’ that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed is she who believed that the words spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled ‘.
In the expression ‘Blessed art thou among women’, her status as a woman is emphasized. It is as such that she is chosen and blessed by God; this is further emphasized by the expression ‘ blessed is the fruit of your womb “, which refers to the fact that this ” fruit ’ is still within her and that she has therefore become, in a way, the new Ark of the Covenant. Elizabeth recognizes Mary as ‘ the mother of her Lord “, foreshadowing the title of ” Mother of God ’ that Christians would give Mary from the first centuries of the Church.
Elizabeth also emphasized the source of Mary's fruitfulness: her faith. "Blessed is she who believed that the words spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled”. All Mary's faith is expressed in her ‘ Fiat ’, and it is at the very moment when her mouth expresses in this Fiat all the faith of her heart that her flesh gives birth to the Son of God in her own body.
During the liturgy of the coming days, we will often ‘meet’ Mary. May this encounter bring us the joy that it brought to Elizabeth and to John the Baptist; may it make us thrill to the Son of God who also dwells in our being of flesh and blood. Above all, may we learn from Mary that all ‘spiritual’ fruitfulness is rooted in an act of faith that remains sterile as long as it is not ‘incarnate’.
Armand Veilleux