We stand on the precipice of Christmas. The time grows short, the days are getting shorter and busier, everyone is bustling about trying to prepare. We are all in haste to get the house cleaned, the presents bought and wrapped, the decorations in place, the lights hanging, everything we need for Christmas. How much attention, though, do we place on the reason for the season? Certainly, we are not forgetful of why it is that we celebrate Christmas: the birth of the Christ Child into the world. Yet do we take time to consider the significance of this holiday? It’s easy to do the work of cleaning and decorating, but are we cleaning and decorating our hearts and minds for the feast day we are to celebrate so soon?
If you pay attention to the prayers of our Mass, you might notice that something is missing: the name of the one who is to be born on Christmas Day. We must always remember that Christ is not necessarily a name but a title, a title indicating the one anointed or chosen by God. Throughout our prayers, which normally include the Holy Name, we notice an absence which expresses the longing of the Church for He who is to be born so soon. It is the longing of our ancestors, the longing of our forefathers, the longing of the whole human race. It is also the longing of a mother to at last hold her unborn child in her arms and to speak their name for the first time to them.
We are journeying now with the Virgin Mary to the town of Bethlehem - foretold by the prophet Micah in our first reading to be the birthplace of the one who is to be the ruler or the king in Israel. Saint Luke presents to us one part of the journey which Our Lady makes towards her ancestral home in showing us what is traditionally called the Visitation: the period immediately after the announcement by Saint Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she will be the Mother of God. The archangel had revealed to her that her cousin Elizabeth had also become pregnant by the power of God; she who had been barren for so long now bore within her womb the one who would prepare the way for the Lord.
Our Lady leaves in haste so as to marvel at what God has done in Elizabeth and in herself. But no sooner does she greet her cousin than her cousin begins to praise her: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Elizabeth cries out in joy and in humility that she has received the gift of a visit from the mother of her Lord. Even John rejoices while in his mother’s womb, leaping for joy that the One whom he will proclaim as the Lamb of God has come to him. Joy overflows this moment which Saint Luke recalls for our consideration.
But even greater joy awaits our Lady: the joy of finally bringing this child into the world. A mother desires more than anyone else the birth of her child, if for nothing else except to have the child finally out of the womb. Yet Mary desires this birth for a far greater reason: because of who this child is and what He will do. She knows that her child is the Savior of the nations. She knows that her child will be the King who frees His people. She knows that her child is the one who truly comes to do the will of God in the flesh He receives from her. She knows that her child is the Emmanuel - the God with us.
This is why she eagerly awaits His birth and rejoices with Elizabeth. Along with her littleness and her humility, God blesses Mary’s immense faithfulness with becoming the most powerful woman in the world, as one magazine recently declared her. Thus does Elizabeth praise her finally as being blessed because she believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled. Believing in God and His desire for our salvation, she who is the handmaid of the Lord has been exalted above every other creature, to the point of even being made the Queen of heaven and earth, all because of her child whose birth is at hand.
Let us rejoice with the Virgin Mary that she is to soon bring into the world the God-man. Let us praise her, just as Elizabeth praised her, for her faith and her humility while learning from her how to do the same. Let us be prepared in mind and heart for the coming child through our prayers and our lives. Let us truly desire to welcome the one whose name will so soon be on our lips, just as it was on the lips of Mary at His birth: the one who is called Savior, the one who is our way and our eternal life, the one who is the God among us: Jesus Christ the Lord.
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