4th Sunday of Advent - 24 December

 

 

 

The fourth candle of Advent represent Peace and is called the “Angel’s Candle.” The angels announced that Jesus came to bring peace. He came to bring people close to God and to each other again. It reminds us of the importance of peace as the true Saviour of the world is coming. This candle is also purple to represent the culmination of love through the Messiah.

 

 

A reflection on today's readings by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen:

 

"Every civilisation has had a tradition of a golden age in the past. A more precise Jewish record tells of a fall from a state of innocence and happiness through a woman tempting a man. If a woman played such a role in the fall of mankind, should she not play a great role in its restoration? And if there was a lost Paradise in which the first nuptials of man and woman were celebrated, might there not be a new Paradise in which the nuptials of God and man would be celebrated?

 

"In the fullness of time an Angel of Light came down from the great Throne of Light to a Virgin kneeling in prayer, to ask her if she was willing to give God a human nature. Her answer was that she 'knew not man' and, therefore, could not be the mother of the 'Expected of the Nations.'

 

"There never can be a birth without love. In this the maiden was right. The begetting of new life requires the fires of love. But besides the human passion which begets life, there is the 'passionless passion and wild tranquillity' of the Holy Spirit; and it was this that overshadowed the woman and begot in her Emmanuel or 'God with us.' At the moment that Mary pronounced Fiat or 'Be it done,' something greater happened than the Fiat lux (Let there be light) of creation; for the light that was now made was not the sun, but the Son of God in the flesh. By pronouncing Fiat Mary achieved the full role of womanhood, namely, to be the bearer of God’s gifts to man. There is a passive receptiveness in which woman says Fiat to the cosmos as she shares its rhythm, Fiat to a man’s love as she receives it, and Fiat to God as she receives the Spirit.

 

"Children come into the world not always as a result of a distinct act of love of man and woman. Though the love between the two be willed, the fruit of their love, which is the child, is not willed in the same way as their love one for another. There is an undetermined element in human love. The parents do not know whether the child will be a boy or a girl, or the exact time of its birth, for conception is lost in some unknown night of love. Children are later accepted and loved by their parents, but they were never directly willed into being by them. But in the Annunciation, the Child was not accepted in any unforeseen way; the Child was willed. There was a collaboration between a woman and the Spirit of Divine Love. The consent was voluntary under the Fiat; the physical cooperation was freely offered by the same word. Other mothers become conscious of motherhood through physical changes within them; Mary became conscious through a spiritual change wrought by the Holy Spirit.

 

"As the fall of man was a free act, so too the Redemption had to be free. What is called the Annunciation was actually God asking the free consent of a creature to help Him to be incorporated into humanity.

 

"There had been a false note of moral discord introduced by the first man which infected all humanity. God could have ignored it, but it would have been a violation of justice for Him to do so, which is, of course, unthinkable. What He did, therefore, was to ask a woman, representing humanity, freely to give Him a human nature with which He would start a new humanity. As there was an old humanity in Adam, so there would be a new humanity in Christ, Who was God made man through the free agency of a human mother. When the angel appeared to Mary, God was announcing this love for the new humanity. It was the beginning of a new earth, and Mary became 'a flesh-girt Paradise to be gardened by the Adam new.' As in the first garden Eve brought destruction, so in the garden of her womb, Mary would now bring Redemption."

 

(Life of Christ)

 

 

 

O Lord, incline Your merciful ears to our prayers and enlighten the darkness of our hearts by the light of Your visitation. Almighty God, fulfill our desire and kindle our hearts by Your Spirit, that being filled with the oil of Your grace, we may shine as bright lights at the coming of Your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

 

 

 

 

“Hail! Full of grace!” In Gabriel’s greeting we learn the state in which the Virgin Mary was deemed worthy to bear the second person of the Triune God: She was full of the grace of God. Preserved from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception, she maintained this purity throughout her life through her humility and obedience to God’s will. If we would have Christ dwell within us, then we must make every effort to mirror Our Blessed Mother’s example and strive to avoid all sin and be pure in thought, word, and deed, so that we too may be worthy to receive Christ into ourselves through the Holy Eucharist.