Fourth Sunday of Advent - Cycle B
Christmas
is close. On Christmas, I will say to you: Let us go to Bethlehem to see the
Messiah and adore him. But today I say to you: Let us go to Nazareth, to see Mary
and Joseph, so that they explain to us what has happened!
NAZARETH
We go to
Nazareth, a small village in Galilee, very small, of about one hundred and
fifty inhabitants, where everybody knows everybody, and we ask for the house of
Joaquin and Anna and their daughter Mary. They tell us, and we knock at the
door.
Mary
opens the door to us. We say to her that we are not journalists but men and
women full of faith and love for God.
Mary, a
young, preatty, immaculate girl, and with a smile on her face, kindly asks us to
take a seat. And, without us saying anything, she already knows why we have
come.
IN
MARY’S HOUSE
Conversation
of Mary with the Angel
Mary tells
us: I was in prayer, and an Angel of the Lord appeared to me, one of the
main angels, Archangel Gabriel. I was scared, I had never seen an angel, and he
said to me: Be not afraid, Mary, rejoice, because I bring a message from God to
you.
We ask
her for the reasons for this joy, and she responds that the reasons are many.
Let us
start from the beginning, says Mary. The angel said to me that I was full of
grace and that the Lord was with me. This made me feel better. The angel
continued by saying to me that God had given me his grace: “You will bear a son
and you shall name him Jesus”.
The
angel described to me how this son would be, by saying: He will be great and will be called 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.
Mary
continues telling us: I did not understand anything the angel said about
having a son, since I didn’t known man. I asked the angel: How could this be,
if I did not have relations with any man? How can this be, if I am a virgin, says the evangelist Luke, literally (Lk
1:34).
I had
never spoken with an angel, said Mary, but he listened to me and we had a very
nice conversation. He said to me that I would conceive through the work of the Holy
Spirit, and that the power of the Most High would overshadow me, and that the child
to be born would be called holy, the Son of God.
So, under
this condition I said Yes to him: Behold, I am the handmaid of
the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Then the angel departed from me (Lk 1:38).
Mary added:
God always respects our freedom and our
collaboration, and still said that she could not fully understand that she
was the Mother of God, the Theotokos.
We took
leave of Mary and went away to Joseph’s house.
IN
JOSEPH’S HOUSE
Joseph,
on seeing the expression on our face, already knows why we have come. Mary has
told us about her joy. Joseph starts by explaining his sadness to us, saying
that he went through a bad time.
Joseph’s
Words
Mary
was my fiancee. We were not yet living together, and one day they said to me
that Mary was expecting a son. It was not a lie, it was not village gossip, it was
the truth and I didn’t know anything about it.
Joseph
said to us that he did not know what to do. Such a good an holy girl, how could
she have done that to him. He knew very well that if he denounced her, she
would be stoned, according to the Law of Moses.
Jose said
to himself inside: “I cannot denounce her, I will not do it”. Then he set out to undo the marriage
agreement secretly.
I had already
determined myself to do that, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to me in a
dream, and said to me not to be afraid to take Mary in my house as my wife. The
Angel said to me: “It is true that she is expecting a child, but she has
conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. And when he is born, you will
name him Jesus, because he will save his People from their sins”.
I
breathed calm, says Joseph to us, and I immediately went to the house of Mary. She looked
at me and I looked at her; those glances were very emotional, without speaking
a word we understood each other. Sometimes a glance is better than many words. I
gave her a hug and I told her that she could come to my house, not as fiancee
but as wife. Our joy was immense, and since then we have lived together.
We asked
him why Mary had not said anything to him about the visit of the angel, and he
gave us the reason Saint Agustin gives: What she had to tell me was so great
that I would have not believed it: the appearance of an angel, to be the Mother
of God, to conceive a son through the work of the Holy Spirit, that he would be
the Messiah, and that His kingdom would have no end.
San
Agustin says that Saint Joseph, although being a very good man, would have said
to her: "Are you crazy, you have dreamt this”.
We took
leave of Joseph and we congratulated him for being the husband of Mary.
And,
nothing else, beloved brothers and sisters listening to me. Let us prepare
Christmas as Joseph and Mary did.
Anecdote
But
before finishing, allow me to tell you a little story about a man who went to the
Opera House to listen to a good concert. On the following day, he went to the
bar, and as he was quite talkative, he explained the concert with all the
details to the men who were seated at the table with him. He perfectly
described the theatre, the stage, the decoration, the vestments of the actors,
the instruments, the people who attended, etc, etc. When he finished, a man
told him that he had talked about many things, but he had not talked about the
concert; whether he had liked it or not. He spoke loudly to him, to make
himself heard, and the man, with sadness, answered that he could not say
anything about the concert, because he was deaf.
I believe
this happens to many people. They prepare lunch, they adorn the house, they
invite the family, they drink champagne, they sing Christmas songs, etc, but
they do not see Jesus, because they don’t have a pure heart.
Blessed are the clean of
heart, for they will see God (Mt 5:8).
Nothing else for today.
See you on Christmas day, God
willing.