Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B, 2023

             

(2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38)

Today, Mother Church puts before us two very significant readings from her sacred Scriptures, and their comparison can show us a fact of fundamental importance concerning our relationship with God, and provide us with sure guidance for the conduct of our spiritual lives.

 Let us look first of all at our Gospel reading:

(The angel Gabriel) said, "Hail, full of grace!  The Lord is with you! ..... Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.  Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall name Him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.” Mary said: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”

 While some scholars have imagined that Mary consecrated her virginity to the Lord in her early years, others have disputed  such an idea as being inconceivable for a young girl living devoutly among the Jewish people who held marriage and childbirth in such great honour.  Such respect, even reverence, was indeed the attitude to childlessness in Mary’s own family background where her highly respected cousin Elizabeth considered childlessness to have long been ‘her reproach among men’ which the Lord had finally deigned to take away through the birth of her son John, the future Baptiser.

Moreover, today’s readings show us that the idea of a formal consecration or dedication of her virginity by Mary is not necessary if we rightly follow the teaching available to us in the first reading about King David, and use it to carefully appreciate Our Lady’s answer to the angel Gabriel.

David, you heard, had planned to build a temple for the Lord:

 

When the LORD had given King David rest from his enemies on every side, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God dwells in a tent!” Nathan answered the king, “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with you.”

 It was God, however, Who would build the temple He wanted, when the time was right.  Therefore, He sent Nathan back to David with this message:

             Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD: Should you build Me a

house to dwell in? I, THE LORD WILL MAKE A HOUSE FOR YOU. When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm.  I will be a Father to him, and he shall be a son to Me.  Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before Me.’

Dear People of God, whatever we do before, and above all for, God is essentially secondary to the attitude in which we do it; and David was adopting a rather condescending attitude towards God, Who knew David’s heart far better than David understood his own enthusiastically chosen words:

             Should you build Me a house to dwell in?

 David, we are told, was a man after God’s own heart, but here he had spoken from his position of newly-gained security, power, and personal satisfaction, all of which had led him to express ‘generous gratitude’ to God.

 Therefore, the prophet was instructed to make it crystal clear to David, WHO was doing the leading and guiding, WHO would protect and save.  That was something  essential for a man of David’s character and capabilities to know.

 Mary, on the other hand, could never think, like David, of bestowing anything on God. Because of her wondrous humility she had no treasured physical virginity to offer Him; her humility was total, and embraced her whole being. And so, Her  life-long desire to belong entirely to God was her virginity because it was absolute. Momentous HUMILITY and un-imaginable VIRGINITY are ‘part and parcel’ of the wondrous beauty of Mary, and that overwhelming passion was not – like a supposed vow would have been -- alien to Jewish aspirations, as we know from St. Paul  (1 Corinthians 7:25, 34), who had been himself a supremely observant Jew:

 

Brothers and Sisters: In regard to virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who, by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy … an unmarried woman, a virgin, is anxious about the things of the Lord so that she may be holy in both body and spirit, (but) she who is married cares about the things of the world.

 So, in her reply to Gabriel, Mary could only speak from that looking-to and longing-for God which was fundamental to her character; and, on hearing the angel addressing her, no marriage-envisioning question such as ‘who has been chosen for me?’ came to her mind, nothing but those simple words:

How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?  Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.

She had always been, and had always longed to “better-be”, ‘the handmaid of the Lord’; and whereas David had spoken to God ‘generously’ out of his present fullness, Mary … with complete humility and total longing … found nothing to offer other than that abiding and absolute commitment to, and longing for, God, which we rightly call her spiritual and physical virginity, the TOTAL VIRGINITY, supreme and spotless, of her Immaculate Being.

And – note this most carefully dear Friends in Jesus -- Mary’s most beautiful virginity, catholic doctrine, and the spiritual ideals they caused to arise in receptive hearts and minds conquered the hearts and minds of women – powerful women, influential women – in vice-ridden Rome.  Yes, the beauty of Gospel Christianity conquered the hearts and minds of all those sick of the pleasures and advantages of pagan practices --- recognized as being pagan by the new, and full-, pure-, blooded, Christians of Apostolic times.  Words of personal condemnation were not used, following Our Lord Jesus’ Own example, but neither were gratuitous blessings or favours bestowed to win worldly favour.

David lived long enough before God in his restored humility and hope, not only to gladly look forward to, but also to prepare for, the beginning of the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise through his son Solomon, who did indeed build an earthly Temple for the Lord in Jerusalem.  However, that first Temple would be destroyed by the Babylonians after some 350 years  and it was not seriously replaced until a most splendid Temple was later built by the wicked King Herod, who did indeed produce a wonderful structure which amazed the world of its time, but was in no way pleasing to God in so far as it had not been built for God’s glory, but for Herod’s own glory, and the renown of his kingdom under the watchful eyes of his imperial overlords in Rome.  And, in the event, it was those very Roman overlords who -- as Jesus foretold -- not only destroyed, but  totally ‘razed to the ground’, that symbol of Herod’s glory before one hundred years had passed. 

 And so, God’s word to David by the prophet had been aimed over and beyond Solomon, for it envisaged and intended Jesus Himself, Whose risen, glorious, Body would become the ultimate Temple of God among men: a Temple not built by human hands, and one where Jews and pagans without distinction would have access to the Father in the one Spirit.

             The Jews said to Him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”  Jesus                   answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise                it up.”   The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six               years, and you will raise it up in three days?”  But He was speaking about the               temple of His body.   (John 2:18-21)

 

Consequently, our Gospel story was all about God choosing When (in the fullness of time), by Whom (His own Son), and through whom (the immaculate virgin Mary of Nazareth), salvation would ultimately be offered to humanity:

 

Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.  Behold, you will 

conceive in your womb and bear a Son, and you shall name Him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father, and He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.

  

It is God alone Who gives salvation and works wonders.  However, we are by no means excluded from His purposes, for we are called – in Jesus and by the Holy Spirit -- to share in and contribute to His work.  Although the Lord did not allow David himself to build the Temple in Jerusalem, his desire to do so was most pleasing to Him, and therefore He rewarded David with great blessings, the greatest of which being that He, the Lord, would build David a house, and from that house the Messiah Himself, Israel’s supreme King, would eventually come. 

 With Mary, on the other hand, her desire was so supremely pleasing to God that it would be immediately and most sublimely fulfilled in the way God wanted: Mary would remain a virgin.  Notwithstanding that however, she would give birth to a Child, her Child indeed, but above all, the very Son of God Himself, incarnate, clothed in Mary’s spotless human flesh.

 The Lord has looked upon the lowliness of His handmaid.

 My dear people, it is a fact that God alone does the work of salvation, for to Him alone is glory and power.  Nonetheless, He wills to associate us in the work His own dear Son accomplished in human flesh and blood, to the extent that even the bread and wine we offer Him at daily Mass must be, and must be declared to be, ‘made’ by human hands.  Moreover, God does not use human beings like tools: for, in Jesus, we are called to co-operate with Him as true children trying to please and glorify their heavenly Father; and it is through such work that we are enabled to receive, by the Holy Spirit, the gift of a personal share in God’s own infinite holiness and eternal blessedness.

 Do you want to make something of your life with and for God, to love and serve Him faithfully and supremely?  Do you want, most sincerely, to become a true Child of God in Jesus?  If you can say “Yes” to such questions, and if you can keep on aspiring to serve Him even though, despite your efforts, you see little of real worth in your life … if you will keep on telling God of your desire even though you have not yet been able to hear any reply … then you will indeed be used by Him for His purposes, and you will become a disciple after Jesus’ own most sacred heart, and in Him, a true child of the heavenly Father.

 Of course, that is not easily done, for it is a lifetimes’ work.  But those whose mind and heart are firmly centred on God, though they may -- at times -- be painfully aware of their own nothingness, do not allow themselves to become downcast or disheartened; precisely, because their mind is always occupied with desires for God’s good-pleasure and greater glory, and thus they are always looking forward and hoping in Him rather than despairing of themselves. 

 People of God, following our Mother Mary,  let us, welcome Jesus -- the very Word of God made flesh -- into our lives anew this Christmas with like sentiments of love and longing, of trust, hope and commitment:

             I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to your Word.

 There is no surer way to find Christmas joy and peace.