Fourth Sunday of Advent: 22 December
“Blessed art thou amongst women”
From L’Osservatore Romano
The angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will give birth to the Son of God, so with this news she hastens to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is also with child in the village of Ain Karem, just outside Jerusalem.
The familial intimate conversation between the two women reveals that God’s plan of Salvation is already at hand. The spotlight shines on Mary and Elizabeth, two lowly and most probably shamed women, through whom God has chosen to begin the transformation of the world using Mary at the Gate of Heaven.
The Gospel passage clearly signals that the unborn child’s leaping is prompted by the Holy Spirit, yet it is Elizabeth, John’s mother, who takes on the role of prophetess by speaking the prophetic word in this scene: she is filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims what Mary has not yet told her, and what is not yet visible to the eye: Mary is with Child; furthermore, through the Spirit she knows who Mary’s child will be, for she calls Mary “the mother of my Lord.” Her prophecy will soon be fulfilled when her own son prepares the way for the Lord.
Elizabeth not only prophesies but she also blesses by declaring blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and thereupon, she begins a series of blessings that are skillfully intertwined through Luke’s narrative of the Nativity. The blessings intensify in their expression of gladness, captivated jubilance, and praise. Mary is an instruments of God’s salvific work, she is the “Gate of Heaven” and indeed she has been richly blessed.
The lowly handmaiden who could be seen as simply just that and nothing more, is in fact, blessed not only for her worthy status as the mother of the Lord, but also for her trust in God’s promise. Elizabeth says to Mary “blessed art thou amongst women” and proclaims that the fruit of Mary’s womb is also blessed and will be so from generation to generation. Mary is blessed because, despite all expectations, her social status has been reversed: she will be honoured rather than shamed for bearing this Child. Moreover, she has also been blessed with divine joy because she has believed that “unto God, nothing is impossible”.
By greeting Mary with honour, Elizabeth overturns social expectations. Mary is an unmarried pregnant woman. She might expect social judgment, shame, even ostracism from her older kinswoman, because for sure, Elizabeth knows from her own experience the cost of being shamed and excluded. In her culture a woman’s primary purpose in life was to bear children, so as an elderly infertile wife she had endured a lifetime of being treated as a failure. Her response to her miraculous pregnancy emphasizes that God’s grace has reversed her social status. In fact, at long last, in her old age, she is an honourable married woman, pregnant with her husband’s son.
Elizabeth continues to go against social norms by opening her arms and her home to a relative whom her neighbours would have expected her to reject. Instead of shaming Mary, she welcomes, blesses, and celebrates her, treating her as more honourable than herself. Thus, the pregnancy that might have brought Mary shame brings joy and honour instead. When Elizabeth welcomes Mary, she practices the same kind of all-inclusive and embracing love that Jesus will show to prostitutes and sinners. She sees beyond the shamefulness of Mary’s situation to the reality of God’s redeeming love at work even amongst those whom society rejects, shuns, and marginalizes.
Elizabeth’s words and actions invite us to reflect on our own openness to the ways that God chooses to act in our everyday life. What is God doing through unexpected people in our society today? Where is God at work through people whom our neighbours and even fellow parishioners often exclude or treat as shameful? Will we listen to the Spirit’s prompting when the bearers of God’s new reality show up on our very doorstep?
May we, like Elizabeth and Mary, trust that God is coming to save and free us. May we, like them, give thanks that God has taken away our shame and then respond to God’s love by welcoming the shameful. May we, like them, become a community that supports each other as we hope and wait in joyful expectation during this contemplative, serene and thought-provoking period of Advent.
* Custody of the Holy Land
By Fr Luke Gregory ofm*
