O KING DESIRED BY ALL PEOPLES

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Micah 5:1-4; Ps 80:2-3,15-16,18-19; Heb 10:5-10; Lk 1:39-45

I have Come to do your Will

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. The white Advent Candle is lit, showing us that the birth of the Lord is around the corner. The heavenly Bridegroom is almost here, and our hearts are eager to meet him. We must all prepare our hearts to meet such a great and majestic guest. There are two motivations for the Incarnation of the Eternal Word: The first is to fulfil the will of the Father, for it is in obedience to the Father that Son assumed our human flesh to reveal the same divine will to us. Thus, the first love that drives the only Begotten Son of the Father is that of his heavenly Father. In the Trinity, this love is the Person of the Holy Spirit. So, we have heard from the Scripture, from the words of the archangel Gabriel himself, that the Blessed Virgin Mary will conceive him by the power of the Holy Spirit. The readings we have today also stress this first love, which drives the Eternal Word to become a man. The prophet Micah writes about this first love motivation: “He will stand and feed his flock with the power of the Lord, with the majesty of the name of his God. They will live secure, for from then on, he will extend his power to the ends of the land. He himself will be peace.” Because he comes in loving obedience to the Father’s will, he will exercise his authority among us and feed the flock of God on the heavenly pasture, which is the eternal will of the Father he comes to reveal to us.

The second reading is even more expressive of this first love motivation, for the author of the letter to the Hebrews quotes the prophetic Psalm on the words of the Son when he took our flesh. “This is what Christ said, on coming into the world: ‘You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me. You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin; then I said, just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book, God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’” This confirms for us the first love motivation of the Eternal Word in assuming human nature. The first love which drives him to appear among us is that of his heavenly Father; he came to love and honour the divine Father and to teach us how to do the same. Hence, the first motivation relates immediately to the second love motivation and derives from it. This is because the command the Father gave the Son is about our salvation. The eternal will of the Father is our salvation from sin and death for this purpose, he missioned his Beloved Son. 

The Eternal Word took our human nature to himself for the love of us. He appeared in our midst to befriend and unite with us in a mystical marriage. We have reflected on how our friendship with the word of God is initiated by our getting familiar with the word by reading, meditating, and contemplating it daily. These prayerful activities constitute a suitable way to respond to the love that makes the Eternal Word come to us. Though he comes at the command of the Eternal Father, he also comes at the prompt of his infinite love for us who are his own and created in his image. He comes to make us into his likeness. He achieves this by inflaming our hearts with the same love with which he loved the Father. The perfection of our likeness to him is attained at the mystical union when we become one with him in love. This union is the purpose of his sacrifice, which he offers to the Father, and made in his likeness, we are to present. Hebrews attests to this: “He is abolishing the first sort (sacrifice) to replace it with the second. And this will, was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.”

Subsequently, the Eternal Word takes to himself our human nature that he may feed us with the heavenly food, which nourishes the love of the Father in us. The Father abandoned us only to awaken the loving desire for our Saviour in us as the prophet Micah prophesied: “The Lord is therefore going to abandon them till the time when she who is to give birth gives birth.” The desire to behold the loving and saving face of our God that grew out of this abandonment is what the Psalmist expresses: “God of hosts, turn again, we implore, look down from heaven and see. Visit this vine your right hand has planted. May your hand be on the man you have chosen, the man you have given your strength. And we shall never forsake you again; give us life that we may call upon your name.” She who is to give birth is ready to give birth, for the Gospel testifies that she is with the child endowed with divine majesty. “Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women, you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Let our hearts rejoice at the coming of the Eternal Word in our midst.

Let us pray: Lord, open our hearts to your grace. Through the angel’s message to Mary we have learned to believe in the incarnation of Christ your Son: lead us by his passion and cross to the glory of his resurrection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.