Fourth Sunday of Advent – Cycle C

Reflecting on Luke 1: 39-45

I received one of those lovely BELIEVE mantel plaques from a friend the other day. It looks so beautiful up there, surrounded by Christmas cards, our Advent wreath ablaze now with all four candles glowing. It’s not a suggestion anymore, I don’t think. BELIEVE is a mandate, an absolute demand of our whole self. To BELIEVE puts us right there with Mary herself, who BELIEVED that the promise of the Lord would be fulfilled.

On the First Sunday of Advent we all resolved to pray for an unknown reader of this column, recognizing that another unknown reader was praying for us. If you happened to miss that week’s reflection, it’s not too late. Right now, imagine someone out there who is reading this. That person needs your prayers. That person may have been praying for you these past Advent weeks.

BELIEVE that your prayers for an unknown reader are reaching heaven this very minute.

But getting back to Mary, her immediate departure from Nazareth to walk ninety miles to Elizabeth’s home is just fascinating.  She must have been very close to her cousin. Don’t you get the feeling that she was as thrilled to hear of her aging cousin’s pregnancy as she was amazed to announce her own?

I wonder if she rehearsed how she was going to explain to her cousin this most astonishing (and history-changing) news. Was she nervous when she walked into the house? Any apprehension she might have had flew out the window the second she arrived, because the pre-born John recognized the pre-born Jesus and leaped for joy.

Oh, and by the way, we don’t ever have to ask again when life begins.

In what ways do you feel the prayers of the unseen reader who is praying for you?

Kathy McGovern ©2018

Advent - Cycle C