Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2015
Luke 1:39-45
“…for at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my
ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy (Luk 1:44).”
St. Elizabeth seemed to have this
special skill that often escaped our eyes. She had this ability to spot that
Mary, her relative, was with a child. That was their first encounter after
years. Nobody told Elizabeth that Mary was pregnant, and surely, no cellphone
and Facebook were yet available during that time for speedy communication. Mary’s
pregnancy was not yet physically obvious since it was barely a month since the
Annunciation. Yet, she did it. We remember that the primary intention of Mary’s
visit was to prove Gabriel’s message that Elizabeth was pregnant, but it turned
out that Elizabeth was the first one who recognized the Mary’s pregnancy.
Before the presence of Mary and the
baby, Elizabeth’s reaction was astonishing. She did not grill Mary with investigative
questions like ‘who is the father?’ or ‘why did you break the Law?’ Neither did
she harbor any hatred to Mary for breaking the Jewish sacred Law, nor reporting
her to authority. She chose rather to embrace Mary and to rejoice with her in
the Lord. Elizabeth did not only have the ability to spot the pregnancy, but
more importantly, the ability to discover the Good News.
Our world is loaded with bad news. Wars
and bloody violence are raging from Sahara desert to tropical jungles in South
East Asia, from North America to Syria. Our news outlets are full of this
terrible information: killing within the family, abuses against women and
children, and natural and man-made disasters. What is horrified is that we buy
these kind of news and serve them as our breakfast. We can easily spot the problems
and issues in our lives. Financial difficulties, health issues, broken
relationships, name it and you have it. We are trained to see the bad news and
linger in them. We, thus, become announcers of the bad news or simply the
complainers or gossipers.
However, echoing the words of Antonio
Cardinal Tagle, the Archbishop of Manila, in the opening of Dominican Jubilee
Door in Santo Domingo Church, Metro Manila few weeks ago, “We do not need another proclaimer of the bad news. Our world has already
a lot of bad news. We desperately need the preachers of good news.” No
wonder if St. Dominic de Guzman is called the preacher of grace, because it is
the main mission of every preacher to discover the working of God in our midst.
As Sr. Mary Catherine Hilkert OP once said ‘preaching is to articulate grace’.
The Advent season gives us Elizabeth. Her
ability to spot the grace among ordinary events and even among unlikely
circumstances makes her a humble yet true model of preacher of the Good News.
Yet, we must not forget that Elizabeth’s skill is not merely human effort, but
in itself a grace of God. She was under the influenced of the Holy Spirit, when
she was able to discover Jesus. Eventually, it is the grace of God within us
that enables us to unearth the grace around us. In turn, the grace around us
brings joy and meaning in our lives as well as strengthens the grace within
us. It is all about grace.
To spot grace and to become happy is not
simply a matter of choice, but it is primarily the fruits and gift of Holy
Spirit. We constantly pray to God to shower us with His grace and blessings so
that in the midst of various earthly concerns and problems, we may not miss
Jesus this Christmas.
Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
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