ME
NU

OMELIE / Omelie EN

22 dic 2024
22/12/2024 - 4th Sunday of Advent - year C

22/12/2024 - 4th Sunday of Advent - year C

Reading 1 MI 5, 1-4 Psalm 79 Reading 2 HEB 10, 5-10 Gospel LK 1, 39-48

«When she who is to give birth has borne!» This is the time of the true freedom for the children of God, because the one who has to be born will snatch from the «rule of others» the suffering people. Our attention is turned to her, she who has to give birth. We are awaiting the delivery anxiously, because we hope in this true freedom. The rule of others in fact is not so much a human power, but instead the power of sin, which continues to strike every man and the whole humanity.

The prophet is announcing a mother, and today we can see this Mother making haste through the mountains to meet – without envy – another mother. Both of them have become unpredictably mothers, taken by surprise by God’s grace and hand. Both of them have let themselves be loved, and now they need to learn how to love, to give themselves, because the life they are carrying in their womb is a gift coming from above.

The prophecies are fulfilled. The wait of the people, lasted centuries and centuries, now in the silence and the secret of these two mothers finds its resolution. While Elisabeth welcomes Mary, John welcomes Jesus. The words Elisabeth addresses Mary tell us who is the Son hidden in her womb, the Son who already has a great, divine name, the Son the prophet is talking about when he announces that «he shall be peace». The joy that makes the older mother’s son jump is foretelling the meaning of that name: God saves! God maintains His promises, God is here, present and at work.

Finally Mary can let go of the fears born out of her new situation, and make space for that joy the whole world is about to receive.

Elisabeth is not accusing her and is not condemning her, on the contrary, not only she understands her, but she even praises her and declares her blessed. Truly is blessed by God the Mother of the saviour, and truly she is blessed in her whole being! She is singing her joy, the joy growing in her the more she considers God’s goodness, the joy which does not diminish because of the condition of the world in which she herself needs and will have to suffer.

The words with which Mary shows her happiness have been taken and repeated throughout the centuries by the Christians. With them every day the faithful give thanks to the Father because He is the true sun they have enjoyed during the day, and He is the prize which every faithfulness to the love is rewarded with. They too suffer daily because of the arrogance and the pride of the rich and powerful, and daily they enjoy the bliss of the poor and the suffering, of the pure of heart and the merciful!

Mary has become the teacher of prayer of the whole Church right at the time when she was expecting her Son and our Savior. She is teacher of prayer and teacher of charity.

The prayer opens the heart to generosity, and charity lived makes the prayer true and concrete. Mary’s prayer has begun when she has spelled out loud the offer that the very Son of God and hers has made known in the silence of eternity: “See, God, I have come to do your will!”. So the letter to the Hebrews is revealing the Son’s gift to the Father: He offers His body as a sacrifice for the sin of men, to be able to present Him all humanity purified by His blood.

Today too we repeat with the whole Church these words, to be able to also repeat after that those of rejoicing: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”.