Monday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Today's Mass Readings
Christmas is rapidly approaching as we begin this last week of Advent. Our readings today turn our focus to joy, the joy of knowing that God is on our side: he loves us, he answers our prayers, and he comes to live among us. Hence the psalm response is taken from the book of Samuel, “My heart exults in the Lord, my Savior!” (cf. 1 Sam 2:1). The readings on this Advent weekday feature the words of women: Hannah and Mary. The story of Hannah is that of a barren woman, who had pleaded with God for many years that she might bear a child. Finally, one day, God heard her weeping and answered her with the conception of her son Samuel. Her song of joy at this miracle of God is the text of today’s psalm, and it is a beautiful description of who God is and what God does for those who love him and seek him. Hannah, a barren and discouraged woman, finds a redemption in her pregnancy and delivery of a healthy son.
God has answered her prayer, and hence we see that God’s love destabilizes our understandings and expectations. For in Hannah’s time, bareness was surely a sign of disgrace and perhaps of God’s disfavor. So also the tendency is to pity the poor and the needy, while we admire the strong and the powerful. Here we see, however, that God shows favor to the weak, and God challenges the presumptions about the wealthy and strong. In the face of God, these powerful are made weak.
Mary’s song, meanwhile, seems to be modeled after the words of Hannah, as if this peasant Jewish girl Mary were familiar with Hannah’s hymn of exaltation and shaped Hannah’s words to reflect her own joy. The themes are similar: Mary rejoices that God has chosen a lowly person such as herself, and she sees God as destabilizing the common perceptions of life. God remembers his people and hence raises the poor and the powerless, while diminishing the strength of the proud and mighty.
The women who speak these words to us today are powerful women, but not in the way that we normally understand power. They are strong and mighty and wealthy because of their faith in God. They grasp both the importance of prayer, and they have a true understanding of who God is. Hence their hearts exult in this God!
Beyond this, however, these women are led to great sacrifice because of this knowledge of God. For Hannah, God’s gifting her with a son led her to give that son back to God; hence she leaves Samuel with Eli so that Samuel may become trained at the temple as a servant of God. For Mary, the privilege of carrying Jesus in her womb also leads to the ultimate sorrow of witnessing his death on the cross.
What we see here is that the joy of knowing God also brings demand upon us. God is with us. This is not just a promise and a gift, but a challenge. We are challenged to rejoice in God and to let that rejoicing lead us to ever greater love, despite the cost. Today, let us take some time to reflect on how we might experience joy and allow that joy to transform our lives. How does exalting in God lead us to make daily sacrifices for God and those around us?
- Maria Morrow