"BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN."

 Homily for 4^th Advent Sunday, Year C. Luke 1: 39-45.

AIM: To present Mary as the model of faith, and to explain why we invoke her prayers.

How many people here are already tired of Christmas? It is only two days away. But outside of church you=d never know that. Long before Thanksgiving we started hearing Christmas carols: on the airwaves, in shopping centers and department stores, in the oozy wash of Muzak that tickles our ears in elevators and stores, and even comes over the telephone when we=re put on AHold.@

We all know the reason for this commercialization of Christmas. It=s Agood for business.@ Many retailers make a good part of their year=s profit during these final weeks of the year. We deplore this commercialization. Do we realize, however, that it has a Christian origin? We give gifts to one another at Christmas because it is the time when God gave us the greatest gift of all: his Son.

The Church hasn=t even begun to celebrate Christmas. Here it is still Advent.  The central figure in today=s gospel is not the Lord whose birth we shall shortly celebrate, but his mother. We heard her cousin, Elizabeth, call Mary, ABlessed among women.@ That phrase has been dulled for us Catholics by constant repetition. It is worthwhile pausing on this fourth Sunday in Advent to reflect on what Elizabeth=s words mean.  

Elizabeth called Mary Ablessed among women,@ and we repeat those words in the Hail Mary today, because of Mary=s trusting faith. ABlessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled,@ Elizabeth said at the end of today=s gospel. She was contrasting Mary=s attitude with that of Elizabeth=s husband, Zechariah. He had not believed the angel=s message, that he and his wife would have a son in their old age. Who can blame him? It seemed impossible.

Mary received the news of an even greater impossibility: that she would conceive a son while remaining a virgin. Like Zechariah, Mary questioned the angel: AHow can this be, since I do not know man?@ (Lk 1:34). The angel replied that her child would be conceived Aby the power of the Most High,@ for whom Anothing is impossible.@ Unlike Zechariah, Mary accepted the angel=s momentous news, and with it God=s call, though the reasons for both remained mysterious to her.

  Why was Mary=s child conceived without a human father? Was it because sexuality and procreation are sinful B or at least second-rate? Not at all. Sexuality and procreation are among God=s greatest and holiest gifts to us. And God does not make anything second-rate, and certainly nothing sinful. Jesus was conceived without a human father because he does not come, like all of us, his mother included, from within humanity. Jesus comes from outside humanity. He took human nature from his mother. But he had God for his Father. The Catechism says: AMary=s virginity manifests God=s absolute initiative in the Incarnation. Jesus has only God as Father@ (No. 503).

Did Mary understand all that in advance? Holy Scripture suggests very strongly that she did not. In the one recorded incident from Jesus= childhood, his parents= search for their twelve-year-old son, and their finding him in the Temple at Jerusalem, Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph Adid not understand what he meant@ when he told them: AI was bound to be in my Father=s house@ (2:49f). How then could Mary have understood the far greater mystery of her Son=s miraculous conception? 

There would be much more that Mary did not understand, and could not understand. At the wedding feast at Cana her Son seemed to speak roughly to her. Yet Mary went on trusting, as she had from the start, telling the servants: ADo whatever he tells you@ (John 2:5). Mark seems to suggest that Mary even joined Jesus= other relatives in thinking he was out of his mind (cf. Mk 3:21). 

The accounts of the Last Supper indicate that there was no place for Mary at Jesus= farewell meal with his friends. Yet when those same male friends Aall forsook him and fled@ (Mk 14:50), Mary remained faithful. We find Mary at the cross where her Son died. Our final glimpse of Mary in the New Testament shows her continuing faithfulness, as she joins Jesus= followers after his resurrection and ascension to pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had promised (cf. Acts 1:14).

It is the age-old conviction of Catholic Christians that this prayer did not cease with the end of Mary=s earthly life, but that it continues in heaven. How often, when we are in difficulty or facing some crisis or suffering, we ask others to pray for us. Priests receive such requests all the time. A stewardess on an airplane said to me: AFather, will you pray for me?  I=m forty and I haven=t found a husband.  I=m getting impatient.@ And more recently the man who came to inspect my car before I turned it in at the end of the lease said, as he handed me the report: AWould you put in a word for my mother? She=s battling alcoholism.@ I have prayed for both of those dear souls, and shall continue to do so.

If it is right to ask our earthly friends to pray for us, how much more fitting to ask, as we Catholics do constantly, for the prayers of our heavenly friends, the saints; and especially of the woman who is now closest to God in heaven; who never gave up when things grew dark and she could not understand; who trusted and believed that God could accomplish in her and through her not merely the difficult, but the impossible. The Catechism speaks of the prayers of our heavenly friends for us when it says: AThe witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom, especially those whom the Church recognizes as saints, share in the living tradition of prayer by the example of their lives, the transmission of their writings, and their prayer today. ... When they entered into the joy of their Master, they were >put in charge of many things= (cf. Mt 25:21). Their intercession is their most exalted service to God=s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.@ (No. 2683) 

The best loved and most frequently used Catholic prayer, after the Our Father, combines the angel Gabriel=s greeting to Mary with the salutation of her cousin Elizabeth from today=s gospel. What better preparation could we make for Christmas than to pray this prayer all together? I invite you to do so now: not just rattling it off, but slowly, thinking about the meaning of the words; with devotion and with deep reverence.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death.  Amen.