Whenever the
4th Sunday comes this close to Christmas it is always difficult to
give a homily without mentioning Christmas, hence blending this 4th
Sunday of Advent with Christmas, which I shouldn’t do since I will be repeating
myself tomorrow and the day after boring you even further. So, much to your delight I will keep this
week’s homily brief. As I was once told,
“Be brief, be quick, and be gone.”
There are
two themes from today’s Gospel that really stand out, that is “The Good News”
and “traveling in haste to share it.”
Once Mary learns that she will be the Mother of the Savior, the Mother
of God in fact, she quickly feels that she must share this Good News with
someone. She must have also been scared,
since she would have to eventually explain to Joseph and to her parents the
conditions of her pregnancy.
Nevertheless
she also felt great joy, that God had blessed her beyond measure. Off she goes to her cousin Elizabeth, to
share with her the Good News but to also hear Elizabeth’s Good News, for
Elizabeth is also pregnant with John the Baptist, the last of the Prophets.
The
questions that remain for us are: Do I believe I have been given Good News and
if so what do I do with it? We have most
definitely been the recipients of Good News, and that Good News is that we are
loved beyond measure by an infinite loving God.
Sometimes the Holy-days are tough and hard on people because they may be
suffering loss or just simply suffering and the Good News seems far away, but
it is not, Jesus is always in our midst.
Since we have been given this Good News, this message of salvation, like
Mary and Elizabeth we must share it with others.
A Christian can never do anything else by his
or her very nature; the Good News of God wants to pour out of us, for God’s
Glory but also for us to share joy with others.
The Prophet Jeremiah understood this when he said, “. . . It (The Good
News) is as if fire is burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow
weary holding back, I cannot!” Jer. 20:9, (NABRE) If the Christmas spirit is
really in us then God’s Word will also be burning our hearts and we can do
nothing less than to share that which is in the very core of our being, Christ
the Lord Himself. Amen
FJ
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