4th Sunday of Advent, C December 22, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“Blessed are you among women.” times 53 in each rosary times the tens of millions of people who pray at least one rosary every day. That means those words are said to Mary over half a billion times every day… and I’m lowballing that number. Mary is blessed indeed!
Why, though? Why should Mary be so blessed? And what can we do to be blessed as well? For one thing, it is God’s will. God chose her from before her birth to be the mother of his son. Nothing she did or didn’t do could have caused that. Nothing we do or don’t do can change that. While God offers blessedness to all, he does not offer the same kind of blessedness to each person. In pursuing blessedness, we do well to remember that our efforts are always a response, dependent on God.
But it isn’t simply the case of God’s sovereign will arbitrarily bestowing favor. It must be received. St. Elizabeth tells us exactly why Mary is blessed: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Mary’s blessedness is directly tied to her faith. She believed. And it bears repeating that faith is not a passive intellectual thing. To have faith, to believe takes effort.
Yes, Mary was miraculously preserved from Original Sin. Yes, an angel appeared to her. But then the “angel departed from her.” He said she would bear a son despite being a virgin, but she could not know, could not verify that immediately. But he another promise: her cousin Elizabeth was 6 months pregnant. Elizabeth lived over 80 miles away. Before cell phones and cars, Mary had no way of knowing the latest news about one person in a small town that far away. But she set out immediately, “in haste” to go see her. Have you ever walked 80 miles? It’s not something you do lightly and it’s hardly convenient. Yet Mary doesn’t hesitate. She acts decisively because even though she doesn’t “know” that Elizabeth needs her help, she believes it. The fact that Mary, a young girl with no money, is willing to immediately travel 80 miles on foot based on the angel’s claim of Elizabeth’s pregnancy means that Mary also believed the angel’s promise of her pregnancy.
When we celebrate Mary’s blessedness, we are celebrating both God’s extraordinary generosity towards her and her extraordinary faith. And every time Mary is involved in anything, it’s about those two things: God’s goodness and trusting God. Seriously, our whole theology is based on those two points: God really is good and we really should trust him. Mary manifests both of these points perfectly, so her blessedness – and our willingness to continuously acknowledge that blessedness – helps us remain firm on the foundations of our faith.
Our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews is a good place to unpack this. This part of the letter is trying to nail down the very essence of what it is that Jesus did that made salvation possible. In this part, the letter quotes one of the psalms as a synopsis of Jesus’ mission. The quote starts with saying “sacrifice and offering you did not desire.”
The letter says it’s not about “sacrifice and offering.” Yet what are Catholics most known for? The sacrifice of the Mass, offering lots of rituals and prayers, “offering up” our sufferings. Are we wrong? No, and you’ll see why in a moment. Still, if not sacrifices, what was the point of Jesus coming? Well, the quote goes on to say, “a body you prepared for me.” Whose body? Well, Jesus has a body, but where did it come from? How was it prepared? Mary. Before Jesus was born, God prepared Mary’s body for him. He prepares our bodies for himself too.
The quote goes on “in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’” The letter and psalm reiterate that this isn’t about rituals having some kind of magic power, but then tells us what it is about. Why did God prepare a body? So that that body can say “I come to do your will, O God.” And what was God’s will for the body of Jesus? That you and I, that all of us might be “consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Wait a moment, didn’t the letter just say twice that “offering” is not the point. Yes. Offering in itself, sacrifices for their own sake are not the point. But if that offering is made in response to God’s will, then what matters is not the offering but the will of God. This is the golden thread, the connection between the warm, comfortable joy of Christmas and the gruesome harshness of Good Friday: obedience. Christmas is not powerful because it’s a heartwarming story of a baby. It is powerful because it is the fruit of obedience to God. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was not powerful because it was so painful. It was powerful because it was done out of obedience. Where Christmas shows us how obedience to God brings joy, the Crucifixion shows how to trust that promise of joy even in darkness. The intensity of his suffering and the cruelty of his execution are not the cause of our salvation in themselves, they are evidence of the perfection of Jesus’ obedience, signs to us of just how profound his love is. And Mary is there for all of it.
Remember how I said that all our theology comes back to the two claims: “God is good” and “we should trust his goodness.” Well, this is the proof of his goodness. God’s goodness is so good, so real that Jesus was willing to obey him unto the point of a gruesome death. We can’t see that goodness because of our limitations. But Jesus can. How do you prove something you can see to someone who cannot see it? If you could see a bridge over a chasm but the person next you couldn’t see it, what would you do to prove it? Step onto the bridge! If they can’t see the bridge but they can see you standing in midair, then maybe they’ll be able to trust what you see enough to take the next step. The Crucifixion is the invisible bridge, Christmas is Jesus standing in the air.
Mary is for us the perfect example of how the loving obedience of Jesus saves those who trust God. By trusting in his goodness and then acting on that trust even before she had proof, she allows God to live in her. That is what makes her blessed. And that blessedness and joy spills over to those around her, causing Elizabeth to cry out and John the Baptist to leap. Even after his birth, Jesus lives in Mary which is how she can silently, humbly, and lovingly accept the crucifixion of her son without losing trust in God. But Mary is more than just an example.
If you’ve ever suffered, if you’ve ever doubted the goodness of God because of your suffering, if you’ve ever struggled to reconcile the joyfulness of Christmas with the ugliness of the world, brutality of the cross, or the sacrificial rigor of practicing Catholicism, then look to Mary. She who first received news of the Incarnation by the message of an angel is also the first to trust that message, the first to suffer the cross with Jesus, the first to share in his resurrection.
But the angel didn’t just make known the incarnation, he made known Elizabeth’s need… he made known to Mary our need. And like she did with Elizbeth, Mary hastens to help us, to bring the presence of Jesus inside of her to us. So receive her with joy! Like Elizabeth, do not hesitate to call her blessed so you can share in her blessedness!
The New Year is coming and people are making resolutions. Might I suggest your resolutions this year include Mary? That you link the goodness of God seen in Christmas with a choice to trust that goodness, to act on that trust? If you do not already, try a daily rosary or at least a few decades of the rosary. If you already pray it, strive to see it not as mere memorized ritual, but as what it really is: the gospel on beads, Christmas and Easter in your hand, blessedness for those who believe.