Homily from the Parish Priest for Fourth Sunday of Advent

Mass Readings: Micah 5:1-4; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45

A time for celebration. Once again, though, this year, everything is so uncertain because of COVID. In wishing everyone a happy Christmas this year I’m simply hoping first of all people are well and safe and hopefully have company. So much I’ve heard from people over the last few months – and I’m not exaggerating – is about the lack of social interaction, the isolation, the loneliness – and these days also the perception more and more of a frustration, an aggression, in human interaction, sometimes accompanied by hostility. I have to say I find I’m meeting that a lot at the moment. It’s not pleasant.

And it’s not seldom accompanied with a disdain for weakness, including for the weakest in our society. It’s there in our collective psyche as part of a built in mechanism for survival it would seem. Manifested in disdain for those who are trying to find a way to our shores, fleeing impossible situations; in a disdain for the homeless poor on our streets. It’s easy to confront that with a ‘holier than thou’ response which doesn’t take account of my own complicity in this.

But the message this last Sunday of Advent is a message of hope right in the midst of all of this, and it’s an experience we share with the holy family. Mary in particular knew what hostility is, what isolation is, what desperation and disbelief is all about. And right in the midst of this the Holy Spirit entered into her heart. And for me that is something of the key to my understanding of the miracle of the Annunciation, of the incarnation – the birth of Jesus Christ – and of salvation through him through her saying yes to the action of that Spirit.

Through the most unlikely member of our race a virgin girl from Nazareth, from the least of the People of Israel, the least of the clans of Judah, one like us made in his image and likeness yet preserved from the stain of sin, makes a free act of trust in God and obedience to his will. She would have been on the fringes of our society, a class leper, and yet it is she who has prepared a home for him. It is she who has welcomed him into our world and so brought forth his reign of peace promised from the beginning of the world. We focus on Our Lady because it is she who is the perfect model of welcoming the Lord into our hearts, of nurturing him, and of bringing him to birth, the one who in total freedom has a heart open to God and open to the world, so ready for the Spirit to take root. That’s why Catholic teaching echoes the scriptures in hailing her as the new ark of his covenant, of that pledge of mercy and love for all humanity from wherever they are, and so proclaims her as the mother of Our Lord who becomes also our mother too, mother and image of what the Church can be. An image of a Church which is an ark for the neediest, a field hospital, a place of welcome and care for all people, and especially the weakest whom God loves and cares for first.

Do you really know God’s love in your heart? And like Mary will you open your heart to him? And do you want to share this love, this mercy, generously with others? Will you invite someone you know to come to church with you this Christmas? Just imagine if one person each of us knew came to church with you? This really is a Christmas like no other when many will be giving the Church their last chance, many thinking whether to come back or not, and yet some surely looking to connect. Please ask them. Pass on your faith. Don’t keep it to yourself. Open your heart to God and allow that heart to speak freely to those most in need. And in the midst of a dark and increasingly hostile world the light will shine again.

Fr Dominic Robinson SJ