HOMILY for the 4th Sun of Advent ©
Micah 5:1-4; Ps 79; Heb 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45
Like pregnant mothers we’ve been awaiting a birth; invited by the liturgy into the silence expectation of Advent. But the incarnation of the divine Word has already happened. God has taken human flesh – Mary’s flesh – and already dwells among us, tabernacled in the Virgin Mother’s womb. Christ is not yet born, but he is from the moment of his conception, Emmanuel, God-with-us in the person of Jesus Christ. By uniting himself to our humanity at his incarnation in Mary’s womb, God has “united himself in some fashion with every human being” (Gaudium et spes, 22). Because of this, we believe that every human life is sacred: loved into being by God, and so, worthy of our love, respect, and reverence.
This truth is underlined today by St Luke’s Gospel account of the Visitation, as we call it. For the first two people to recognize the presence of Emmanuel in Our Lady’s womb are Elizabeth and John. These two, in fact, represent the most vulnerable in our society today, those whose divine right to life is often challenged, and, not infrequently, simply for reasons of convenience. For Elizabeth and John stand for the elderly and the unborn child; they stand for the vulnerable whom we are called to protect, cherish, and ‘visit’ with our love.
In a recent lecture in Oxford, the Dominican bishop Anthony Fisher noted that economic pressures on public healthcare have led to so-called “age rationing”, whereby the elderly are isolated and intentionally deprived of medical care to hasten their death, and so, reduce their economic burden. This hastening of death contrasts sharply with today’s Gospel, in which Our Lady hastens to Elizabeth, bearing in her womb the Author of Life himself. So, too, we are called to be bearers of life, and hasten to bring life, human flourishing, and true respect for human dignity to all people.
In our reverence for the sanctity of human life, and in our care for human dignity at every stage, we recognize with faith that God is Emmanuel, present and with us in our humanity. And God is not seen primarily in the powerful, the influential, and the healthy, or among those who claim rights over another human being. God is revealed to us in the vulnerable and suffering, the lonely widow, the voiceless unborn child. And in our love for them, through our advocacy for their sacred right to life, by responding to their plea for mercy, compassion, and protection, we make our visitation: we bring to the most vulnerable people, God the Source of Life itself, and we affirm, “God is with us”.
Another contemporary aspect of today’s Gospel caught my attention, but perhaps we need to bring in Luke 1:24, which says: “Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she hid herself… ” Some commentators among the Fathers of the Church, as well as the 19th-century Dominican exegete Père Lagrange, say that Elizabeth went into seclusion because she was afraid of the stir that her pregnancy, so late in her life, would cause among the neighbours. I think it would not be too much of a stretch to say that, given such fear (or even shame, according to some commentators), St Elizabeth’s ‘unplanned’ pregnancy would be deemed by some these days to be a ‘crisis pregnancy’. And, so too, would Our Lady’s – the unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage girl, is largely considered a ‘crisis pregnancy’ by many in our society.
Now, if we Google ‘crisis pregnancy’, the top link, which is a sponsored link, takes one to the BPAS website – ‘The British Pregnancy Advisory Service’. And the advice that is given seems to be heavily weighted in one direction – abortion. Hence, the website boasts that “[BPAS] is Britain’s largest single abortion provider”. So, just as the response of some to the elderly is to hasten their death, so, too, the response of organizations like BPAS to the unborn and so-called unwanted child is to advocate the hastening of their deaths – over 55,000 times a year, according to the BPAS website.
But today’s Gospel, as I have said, advocates life which is why the Church does so too in every situation where an innocent individual human life is involved. For every human life, we believe, is sacred: loved into being by God, and so, worthy of our love, respect, and reverence. It is this faith that Our Lady has. Moreover, it is Mary’s faith in God’s providence and goodness even when her life is in turmoil, or even in peril, that enables her to trust in God and say ‘Yes’ to life, ‘yes’ to motherhood, ‘yes’ to loving another vulnerable human being. Without this faith, there would be no Christmas!
Therefore, we echo the words of St Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed”; blessed is she who had faith in God’s providence, faith in humanity, and indeed, faith in the child that she bore in her womb. Every mother, I think, needs such faith to accept a pregnancy and bring her child to birth; Faith in God, of course, but also, on the natural level, faith in the communities she is a part of; faith in you and me. She’ll need to trust that she and her child will be supported, helped, and cared for, that ours is a loving society that will provide opportunities for the good of every child, and that, ultimately, life is beautiful, joyful, and worth living.
Hence, our Catholic advocacy for life does not stop at birth but is truly for life, from conception to natural death, and truly catholic, encompassing everything that makes for justice and human flourishing, that promotes human dignity both individually and in society – from ecological concerns to social welfare to nuclear disarmament. But well-rounded human flourishing also includes, most importantly, a living relationship with God who is Love. So, we strive to build not only a just society, but a civilization founded on love, and a culture of life; a community in which every person is sacred, and the most vulnerable are honoured because they reveal the incarnate God to us.
Every Advent, the prophets stir up in us a longing for this. But for God’s civilization of love to become an adult reality and not just a childhood myth sung in pretty carols, each of us needs to bring Love to birth, beginning with our own lives and extending to our families and communities. So, in this Year of Faith, we pray especially for the gift of a living and joyful faith so that, like Mary, we can say ‘Yes’ to God, ‘yes’ to life, and ‘yes’ to loving another vulnerable human being. For only with such faith can there really be Christmas for our broken waiting world, and not just on 25 December, but every day of the year!
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