First Reading
Micah 5:1-4a
Thus says the Lord: You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel; whose origin is from of old, from ancient times. Therefore the Lord will give them up, until the time when she who is to give birth has borne, and the rest of his kindred shall return to the children of Israel. He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord, his God; and they shall remain, for now his greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth; he shall be peace.
Second Reading
Hebrews 10:5-10
Brothers and sisters: When Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight. Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’” First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” These are offered according to the law. Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Gospel Cycle Cycle C
Luke 1:39-45
Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Today we hear how little Bethlehem is. Little does not mean so much small in size here but not worthy of notice. This continues a theme that we find always in the Hebrew Scriptures: God chooses the lowly. It is from the lowly that we can expect to see God’s work proceed. Salvation will come to us from the lowly and the unexpected. This theme runs all the way through the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus continues to preach this same message in the New Testament.
The Gospel today gives us both Elizabeth and Mary as witnesses of God’s choice of the forgotten, the aged, the lowly, those who trust in God with no expectation of anything.
So as we come to the end of Advent, we need to think again about our own lives and our own way of thinking. We want to allow God totally into our lives, in every aspect of our lives. This always sounds so easy! It would be wonderful if we could just make such a strong decision and then do everything according to God’s will. But Advent reminds us of all of the stories of the history of salvation. These stories tell of us normal people, like ourselves, who wanted to serve God but who were not always faithful. But they kept on choosing to serve God, even in spite of their unfaithfulness. We can think of David the King, of Moses, of Abraham, of Sarah, of Bathsheba, etc. These are people who are part of the history of our salvation and who are flesh and blood human beings at the same time.
Advent is a time when we are invited to increase our personal desire for salvation. It is as though we want with all our heart for the heavens to open and for the Savior to appear. We must want that personally and with all of our energy. When we fail in this desire for the Savior, we can still ask His help.
Mary and Elizabeth are given to us today as images of faithful women who were able to accept God’s word and try to cooperate with it. Mary is the finest flower of our human race in her total choice to do God’s will.
We can read again the Letter to the Hebrews and spend some time refocusing our energies on the Lord and trying to do God’s will. Tonight will be the end of Advent. May this Advent time end with us more deeply committed to God and with intense desire for salvation. Let us do the will of God in our lives!