Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Today's Scripture

In less than three days, we will begin Christmas celebrations. Advent is drawing to a close, and thus the beginning of the liturgical year is near its end, and with Christmas we will begin to immerse ourselves in the deeper waters that flow to us in the Liturgy throughout the rest of the liturgical year. Today’s readings are especially appropriate by way of anticipation of the Solemn Feast we are rapidly approaching.

The first reading from First Samuel tells us of Hannah bringing the young Samuel with her to the Temple in Bethel (prior to the building of the Jerusalem Temple). Samuel was born to Hannah miraculously. In some ways this parallels St. Elizabeth’s pregnancy with St. John the Baptist, especially since both Samuel and John the Baptist become prophets. In today’s readings, however, the liturgy asks us to read Hannah in light of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Samuel in light of Jesus.

We see this connection especially in the similarities between Mary’s Magnificat, our Gospel reading for today, and the responsorial psalm from First Samuel 2. One of the overarching points of both hymns of praise to God is that God has exalted the lowly, the humble. In the Old Testament, Hannah is this humble woman who has been exalted by God through the miraculous birth of her son who would become an important prophet. In the case of the New Testament, Mary is the humble woman who has been exalted by God so that she could bear the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth in her womb, and raise Him as her own Son. Her motherhood of Jesus becomes the greatest form of her exaltation.

We too are lowly servants. By our baptism we too have been exalted to a supernatural level that we could never achieve on our own. Recently I saw a bumper sticker that said the opposite: “born ok the first time.” The first time, however, we are merely born to natural life. It is baptism that brings us to the supernatural life to which we are all called. This is how God has exalted all of us to be a royal priestly people of God. It is especially in the Church’s sacramental life that we experience the exaltation of the lowly. As we prepare ourselves for Christmas perhaps we can meditate on the Magnificat. The Catholic Church calls Mary blessed, and the rich tapestry of Catholic beliefs and practices that pertain to Mary begin with the early threads of such early Gospel events celebrated by feasts like Christmas.

- Jeff Morrow