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OMELIE / Omelie EN

22 dic 2019
22/12/2019 – 04th Sunday of Advent - Year A 

22/12/2019 – 04th Sunday of Advent - Year A 

Reading 1 IS 7,10-14 * Psalm 23 * Reading 2 ROM 1, 1-7 * Gospel MT 1,18-24

 

For he who has been preparing, the Eucharist is more beautiful, and it will certainly be more useful, and his participation a better gift to the brothers.

God Himself wanted His people to be prepared to welcome both His Word spoken in an intelligible way by the Son and His wonderful miracles of salvation: He has anticipated a long time ago the events. We read today in the book of the prophet Isaiah the words that many centuries after Mary has heard addressed to her by the angel. She knew those words thanks to meditating on the Scriptures: she was then prepared to hear them as words addressed to her, words involving her personally. And also Joseph, as the Gospel according to Matthew tells us, has heard similar words in his dreams, words known to him, which just for this reason have given him the confidence and peace to take Mary as his wife.

The importance of the Word of God is one of the topics that guide the meditation of this Sunday: the Word of God is important because it is fulfilled, because it becomes flesh and enters the history of men. The Word addressed by the prophet Isaiah to the king Ahaz, after about five centuries completely involves the virgin Mary, who finds herself actually pregnant. She did not have to do anything, but God Himself has acted through His Spirit, which is Holy, which then is not influenced by the man, who stains always everything he does with his sin. The Holy Spirit has made the Word of God come true, and Mary becomes a mother.

The man needs to let himself being fully involved with the Word: in fact, Joseph will give the name to the Son of Mary, the prophetic name that is the translation of “Immanuel”, the “God is with us” of Isaiah. If God is with us, we are safe, we are safe forever, we are free from any influence of evil. God becomes our ally! And such an ally is guarantee of salvation. This name then is Jesus, God saves”, “God is saviour”! Joseph will give the name to the Son of God, and therefore he will totally commit to Him. Men could blame him, mock him, go against him: he knows he is God’s cooperator in fulfilling his Word. Men, in general, are only able to reject the Word of God, like the king Ahaz, who could only gain from it. Men, in fact, always think of themselves as superior… superior even to God who is talking to them with love: they will never have then a good disposition towards those who “do” the Word of the Lord! Joseph has suffered, but he has taken part in Mary's obedience and therefore he has become a precious man in God's plans.

In a few days we will celebrate the birth of Jesus: we will be grateful to God the Father, but we will also say our thank you to Mary to have made herself available to carry Him inside her, we will be saying it to Joseph too to have made himself God's helper in his humble and hidden obedience; we will say thank you to all the people who have reached our heart with the news of this Mystery. With their obedience they have given us a taste of “the salvation of our God”, they have made us experience His presence at our side, and they have made us aware of a responsibility that now is our turn to take on! We can repeat Mary's yes, Joseph's yes, every apostle's and disciple's yes, so the Word of God, soaked in His love, would continue to become “flesh” to reach every man in his environment and his story.

Saint Paul enjoys living this responsibility in depth. He is transferring to us too the joyful rush to say a ready and generous “yes” to the Father, so the Son would be born in a new horizon, so Jesus would give many people the certainty to be saved, loved and welcomed by the Father of everyone!