This Sunday – the Fourth Sunday of Advent – we are just a few days before Christmas. In the final preparation for Christmas, the Gospel tells us how Mary, bearing her child within her, traveled to her relative, Elizabeth. Mary is not the one who tells Elizabeth that she is pregnant. Instead, the Holy Spirit causes the child in Elizabeth’s womb to “leap for joy.” Elizabeth, like her child filled with the Holy Spirit, knows who Mary is and who is her child. She praises her with the greeting that millions of people have been repeating every day for centuries and millennia: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
The joy of Elizabeth and of the baby in her womb was authentic and profound because it referred to the most fundamental matter of any human life: life everlasting that was offered by the Savior, Messiah, Son of God. On December 25th, we, our families, and the entire Church will celebrate the historical appearance of the Savior who came to us as a child, born like us, born in poor conditions in Bethlehem. Let us join Elizabeth, her child John, the shepherds and others in this authentic and profound joy. Let us join the angels in their resplendent song: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.” Let us join the Magi in their homage to the Newborn King as we gaze upon the baby Jesus in the Nativity scene and genuflect and kneel before Jesus in the Eucharist.
May this Good News also reach the people living in occupied Bethlehem and those suffering in Gaza, and in other countries around the Holy Land. May the Prince of Peace give them His true and just peace.
In Jesus Christ, the Son of God – God Himself, God from God – became man. God has become one of us, so that we can be with Him and become like Him. As a sign, He chose the Child lying in the manger: this is how God is. This is how we come to know Him.
As we enter the amazing and beautiful Christmas, may God bless us and our families as we celebrate the inauguration of the salvation of the entire world and each of us.
Wishing you a most blessed and merry CHRISTmas!
Fr. Mark Jurzyk