Homily - Christmas Day Mass

4th Sunday of Advent

Micah 5:1-4a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

Today, as we begin this final week of Advent, the great mysteries and personalities we have traveled with over the past weeks suddenly converge in new ways. The prophetic promises made to Israel become stories of a child to be born, the son of a Virgin, conceived by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist – the voice in the desert we have heard these last weeks – is now vocally silent but communicates by leaping for joy in the  womb of his mother as he hears the voice of Mary who is pregnant with the Christ child.

One can only imagine how wonderful this encounter in today’s Gospel must have been – two generations locked in the embrace of divine joy and hope. Elizabeth, a woman in the autumn of her years, her deepest hope now answered, greeting the maiden from Nazareth, in the springtime of the world’s salvation.

Both are women of extraordinary faith: one believing the message of an angel despite all the questions that must have swirled around her head, the other trusting that even in her advanced age she, too, might be fruitful.

Through overwhelming grace and faith, these two ordinary women, without title or prestige, stand center stage in the great drama of salvation: stitching together the old and new covenants and witnessing to God’s fidelity and eternal mercy.

It would seem God has a special love for the most ordinary: the simple virgin from Nazareth, the elderly couple from the hill country, the town of Bethlehem. As Micah prophesied, You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel. The long-awaited ruler of Israel will come – he who would fulfill the dreams of the Davidic dynasty. All these details of Jesus’s incarnation and birth reveal to us the character of God. If it is God’s way to choose the small and humble, then it must be ours as well.

Dear friends in these last days of Advent, we are called to travel more deeply into the mystery of the Incarnation and allow our lives to leap for joy in the presence of the Christ child. We are called to find the glory in the most ordinary, and the greatest blessing in the smallest of things.

The circle of light on our Advent wreath is complete. To embrace its warmth and joy we must, like Elizabeth and Mary, open our lives to God and to others. We must live in the hope of God’s fidelity and allow that hope to transform and empower our lives not just for a day but for every day. Let's ask Elizabeth and Mary to help us see what is happening among us, to discover God's workings in our lives and to leap for joy. May the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model of belief and discipleship continue to intercede for us!