The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C)

The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C) First Reading Micah 5:1-4 Response Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved. Psalm Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19 Second Reading Hebrews 10:5-10 Gospel Acclamation Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. Gospel Luke 1:39-45 The Fourth Sunday for Advent in Year C revolves around the mystery of the Visitation to Elizabeth. This is the very well-known story of Mary departing after the Annunciation and traveling to the household of Elizabeth to be with her cousin. So we re going to read that gospel and then we'll look at it in light of the Old Testament for today, and see if we can unpack some of its meaning for us during the Advent season, as we re right on the cusp of Christmas. So in Luke 1:39-45 this is what we read for today's gospel: In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechari'ah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." 1 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible citations/quotations herein are from The Holy Bible: Re- vised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994.

Okay so a couple of elements of that gospel reading that are worth emphasizing. The first one just has to do with the geography. Sometimes we can be a little fuzzy on geography, I know I can be that way for sure, and yet in the Bible geography matters. There s often a kind of theological connotation to various geographical names and places, to say nothing of just the practical dimension of knowing where these events happen. And in this case there s a north-south dimension here that's important to keep in mind. The Annunciation to Mary takes place in the north, in Galilee, in a city of Nazareth, but the Visitation to Elizabeth takes place in the south, in the territory of Judah. So if you ve ever actually been to the holy land, I went to the holy land back in the 90 s, you ll know there s a big difference between the topography of Galilee and the topography of Judah. So in Galilee, in the north where Nazareth is, it s very lush, lots of green fields and pastures, farmland so to speak, very rich and fertile land. That's where the Annunciation takes place, beautiful land of Galilee in Nazareth. I remember when I was in Israel I was at the Mountain of Megiddo and we watched the sun come up over Nazareth every morning. It's a beautiful place in the world. If you go down to the south where Elizabeth and Zechariah are, it says here in Luke, the hill country of Judah. Well if you try to walk there and you're from Louisiana like I am where you re used to things being flat, you will be very, very aware of the fact that it is hill country, it means hill country. It's very hilly, it s very rocky. It d be arduous to walk around on foot for very long distances if you aren t used to it, like I'm not being from flat land like Louisiana is. But in this case there's a significance to what s being described here. Mary leaves the beauty and the lush land of Galilee. And she travels as a pregnant woman to the hill country of Zechariah and Elizabeth, where they are in Judah, in order to be with her cousin, in order to minister to her cousin. So the fact that Luke says she arose and went with haste is interesting, right. There s a certain urgency here that Mary wants to go to be with her cousin Elizabeth. Exactly why, the text doesn't say but we can reasonably speculate at least two things. First, to share the good news that she has learned from Gabriel, who has also told her what has happened to Elizabeth, right, that Elizabeth is now with child. So I m sure there s a certain curiosity on Mary's part too. To want to go to Elizabeth and hear from her what has happened to her through the grace of God.

But also there's been a tradition of interpreting this, and I think it's a reasonable one, of Mary's desire to serve her cousin Elizabeth in her need. Think about it for just a minute. In the Annunciation we learned that Elizabeth was not only barren but that she was advanced in years, she was an older woman. And so pregnancy is hard enough and difficult enough for a young woman in her 20 s, she's going to need help when she's pregnant. How much more would that be the case for an older woman who is going to have a child. So there's also a tradition of interpreting Mary's haste and urgency to go to Elizabeth as a desire to serve her cousin. A desire to be with her during the time of her pregnancy. And this would make sense because we learn later in Luke's gospel that Elizabeth is in her sixth month when Mary departs and that Mary stays with her for about three months. So the implication is that she stays with her for the duration of her pregnancy in order to assist her cousin. So just a little kind of human, geographical, practical, real-life dimension to the famous story of the Visitation. The second element that I want to highlight here is Elizabeth's reaction to Mary's presence, okay. So if you look at what Luke says here it's very interesting. It says she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth, and that when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the babe leapt in her womb. It's interesting here because, I know for my sake, I have a tendency to think well John the Baptist leaps in the presence of Jesus, right. That when they come together he expresses joy. And that s true, but it s fascinating that Mary acts as the mediator, so to speak, between Jesus and John, right. It doesn't say that when the baby came into the presence of John the Baptist John leapt, it says that when the voice of Mary's greeting reached Elizabeth's ear the baby John leapt. So it s like Christ's presence is, in a sense, mediated through Mary and through Elizabeth to John and then John reacts there. So it s just a beautiful image of the role that Mary plays here and the dignity of Mary. It's Mary's greeting that leads Elizabeth here to respond. And it says that she was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry and she utters this beatitude: Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! Now notice here that although we say those words, they re very well known in the Hail Mary, Luke is really clear that Elizabeth doesn't just say, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. She shouts it. Look, look what it says there, Inspired by the Holy Spirit she exclaimed with a loud cry. So Elizabeth here is overcome with joy when she hears the greeting of Mary. And in

her response to it, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is to bless Mary and to bless the child. So it s like a two fold beatitude: Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, right. So the beatitude. The other element here of Elizabeth s response here that s interesting is her humility, her humility. She says this, Why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me. Again, note the emphasis on Mary. Not to the detriment of the honor being given to Jesus. It doesn't take away from Jesus, but, you know, sometimes people might say Elizabeth is humbled by the fact that Christ comes into her presence. And that's true, but it isn't just Christ. It's the mother of Christ as well. Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me. Now that expression, mother of my Lord, is really an important one for two reasons both christologically and mariologically. So let s start with Christology. On the Christological level, when Elizabeth says, mother of my Lord, the Greek word there is kyrios. And it is the standard Greek term for a king or for The Lord in the Old Testament. So in the Greek translation of the Bible kyrios can sometimes be used to refer to a king or a ruler, but the majority of its uses in the Old Testament is as a translation of the name of God, of the Hebrew name of God, YHWH, frequently called the Tetragrammaton, the four letters. So whenever the four letters were translated into Greek by the Jews who translated the Greek Septuagint they didn't transliterate that Hebrew word. They would just render it as the Lord. And so by the First century A.D. in Greek, kyrios was also the name of God to speak of the Lord. So scholars have pointed out that if you look at Luke's Gospel and the way he uses the word kyrios throughout the gospel, on the one hand it does include that dimension of a king. So on one hand Elizabeth is saying here, Who am I that the mother of my king should come to me? Because Jesus is the King, he's the Messiah. But Luke is very intentional too throughout his gospel of using kyrios not just to refer to Jesus' kingship but to the fact that he's a divine king. In other words he s not just the Messiah he is the Lord come in person. And so even non-catholic scholars, like one Jewish scholar points out, that when Elizabeth in Luke 1:43 says, mother of my Lord, it's a divine title, right. That Jesus is the divine king, he's the Lord come in person. And that's why Elizabeth is so humbled, right.

Think about it. On a human level Elizabeth is Mary's older cousin. It is not customary for older cousins to greet younger cousins in this way. I know, I have over 50 cousins on my father's side and my dad was like toward the end of the line, not the last child out of 12 but he I think is fifth or sixth I can t remember. But anyway, so I have lots and lots of older cousins. Older cousins do not greet younger cousins this way, right, in big families and then certainly not in antiquity as well. The older cousins often would actually have a position of authority over the younger cousins. So, for example again, just for what it's worth, in my own family my older cousins who were much older then me we actually refer to them as uncles and aunts, because it was seen as disrespectful just to call them by their first name. In antiquity the same thing was true. Older cousins in the wider network of the family, it wasn't just nuclear families, wider network of the family, were figures of authority. They were to be respected, right. And in this case though the tables turn. Who is it that honors who? It s not Mary honoring Elizabeth as the elder cousin, it's Elizabeth honoring Mary. Why? Because Mary is the mother of the King, and Mary is the mother of the Lord come in the flesh. So she's not just mother of the Messiah, she's the mother of God. And Elizabeth s overwhelmed with the fact that she has the honor of Mary coming into her presence and greeting her. I just bring this up because sometimes our non-catholic brothers and sisters, non-catholic Christians, will say, you know, why do you Catholics give so much honor to Mary? Don't you think it's just too much? Is just too much emphasis. You're taking away from Jesus by honoring her. Not according to the Bible. I mean notice here, who is it that inspires Elizabeth to utter these words of honor over Mary? It s the Holy Spirit. So apparently the Holy Spirit didn't have a problem with Elizabeth blessing Mary. Same thing, it's the Holy Spirit who inspires the author of Luke's gospel, Luke, to tell us that Elizabeth was humbled in the presence of Mary. None of this takes away from Christ, it's Christ himself who makes Mary mother of the Messiah, that makes Mary mother of God. And so Elizabeth doesn't honor either Christ or Mary, she honors Mary because of Christ. It's a both and, not an either or. So in this account of the mystery of the Visitation as we prepare for the Feast of Christmas I just want to emphasize that, right. That to honor Mary, as the gospel today shows Elizabeth doing, in no way takes away from honoring Christ. Both and, not either or.

And sure enough if you go to the end of the gospel there Elizabeth utters a second beatitude, a second benediction or blessing over Mary. Why is Mary blessed? Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. So that's an important corrective to any potential misunderstandings. We re actually going to see later on in Luke's gospel, in the Gospel of Luke chapter 11, a woman is going to say to Jesus, you know, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that nursed you. And Jesus will turn around and say, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. And sometimes people will say, A-ha! Look, Luke 11:27-28 Jesus, you know, disrespects Mary or he puts Mary in her place and he shows that, you know, you Catholics honor Mary too much. Well, to the contrary, when Luke 11 is read in light of Luke chapter 1 the two do not oppose one another. They go together. Mary is blessed because she's the mother of the Lord, Elizabeth says so, but she s not blessed only because she's the mother of the Lord. At the end of the day the root of her blessing is because of her faith. What does Elizabeth say? Blessed is she who believed that what was spoken to her from the Lord would be fulfilled. So at the end of the day when Jesus says, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it, there is no better example of that in the Gospel of Luke then Mary herself. Mary is the first person in the Gospel of Luke to hear the word of God and to keep it. Because Zechariah if you recall doesn't believe it when he hears it. So, I just bring that up because I think when you look at Luke's account of the Visitation in context it provides a helpful corrective to a misinterpretation of Jesus response to that woman in the crowd. See what that woman in the crowd was saying was, well blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you. She s kind of, in a sense, reducing Jesus mother just to her body parts, just to the physical dimension of being his mother. And what Jesus says is no, no, no, actually at the end of the day the root of the blessing is for those who hear the word of God and keep it. Which is exemplified by Mary in the Gospel of Luke as exhibit A. She s par excellence, that example of someone who hears the word and keeps it, and therefore she's blessed among women. Alright so that s the gospel reading for today. The Old Testament reading is a prophecy from the Book of Micah. Now we re in the fourth week of Advent, at this

point you might be starting to get tired of all these prophecies. This is the season of prophecy. This is the time of year when the church puts before us quantitatively the most prophecies from the Old Testament. We do a lot of our Old Testament reading during Advent not from the Books of Genesis and Exodus, you know the stories of salvation, but from the books of the prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Zephaniah, Baruch. All these prophets who are preparing for the coming Messiah, and today is no different. So in Micah 5:1-4 we have an oracle of the birth of the Messiah in the city of Bethlehem. So let's read this passage. It s a very famous passage, very well-known but we ll try to highlight a couple elements. Micah 5 says this: But you, O Bethlehem Eph rathah, who are little 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 days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth; then the rest of his brethren shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. What s going on in this prophecy? Several things. First, obviously the prophecy is focused on geography. I talked about this before, geography matters. Where is Bethlehem? Well Bethlehem is in the south. It's in the southern territory, the southern part of the holy land, which was referred to as Judah, right. So this particular town, Bethlehem, was famous not for its size, it was a small place, but for its associations with King David. So Bethlehem was the birthplace of David, it was the place of his family. And 1 Samuel 17 tells you that David lived in Bethlehem along with his father Jesse and the sons of Jesse there. So in a prophetic context when Micah brings up the city of Bethlehem, as soon as you say Bethlehem a First Century Jew would think David, the city of David, the King of David. Alright, second though, you ll notice there's a little second name added here, a little appendix so to speak. It doesn't just say, But you, O Bethlehem, it says, But you, O Bethlehem Eph rathah, right. Now why does it add Eph rathah? Well I m not exactly sure. But I can't help but notice the fact that Eph rathah is

mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament as a town that's close to Bethlehem, that's linked with Bethlehem, but which is first mentioned in the Bible with reference to a woman in the Old Testament, the mother of Israel whose name was Rachel. So you might remember in the Old Testament Jacob is the father of Israel. Jacob was the brother of Esau, he s the son of Isaac, and his name is changed by God to Israel. And he becomes the father of the 12 sons who are the 12 tribes of Israel. So you could say in a very literal sense that Israel, Jacob, is the father of Israel the people, right, he's the patriarch. Well, he was also married to a woman named Rachel and Rachel, likewise, was the mother of Israel. She was the matriarch, so to speak, of the 12 tribes of Israel. And what s interesting is, if you go back to Genesis 35 we have a story of Rachel's death and burial. And guess where this mother of Israel dies and is buried? She's buried at Bethlehem Eph rathah. So let's look at the passage for just a minute. This isn t the Old Testament reading for today. I m just throwing this in as a little Advent gift to you, so this is just a little extra Christmas gift, a little lagniappe here. But I think it's interesting because in Genesis 35 we see the mention of Ephrath which is linked into Eph rathah in the prophecy of Micah. So Micah wants you to think back to this text we re about to read. So Genesis 35:16 says this. This is the story of the death of Rachel, the mother of Israel. It says: Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel travailed, and she had hard labor. And when she was in her hard labor, the midwife said to her, "Fear not; for now you will have another son." And as her soul was departing (for she died), she called his name Ben-o'ni; but his father [Jacob] called his name Benjamin. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem), and Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave; it is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Alright now you might be thinking, Dr. Pitre what does that have to do with Micah 5 or any of that? Well, two things. First, just notice that Bethlehem Eph rathah echoes the story of the place where Rachel was buried. And sure enough to this day, not just to the day that Genesis was written but to the present day, you can go to Rachel's tomb near Bethlehem. And people do go to Rachel's tomb there, Jewish people go there, to honor Rachel as the mother of Israel. And there is a practice among some Jews even of asking for Rachel's intercession to pray for the Jewish

people. And the reason they do this is because the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 30 and 31 says that Rachel is weeping for her children because they were no more. Now Jeremiah is writing hundreds of years after Rachel had died and yet he describes her as alive and mourning with her children, praying for her children so to speak, interceding for them. So the Jewish tradition developed that Rachel wasn't just the mother of Israel that she was also kind of great intercessor on behalf of Israel. And that somehow through dying in childbirth, right, she kind of embraced that suffering and became the suffering mother of Israel. So if you go back to the first reading for today notice what Micah says there. He's describing the coming of the Messiah, and look what he does. He links the prophecy of the Messiah to this image of a woman who is in travail, right. Go back to the prophecy he says, from you [Bethlehem Eph rathah] shall come forth for me one who is ruler of Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days he shall give them up until the time when she who was in travail has brought forth. Well, who is this woman who was in travail in the Old Testament, near Bethlehem Eph rathah? It was Rachel, the mother of Israel. Who through her suffering brings a child into the world, Benjamin, the last of the 12 tribes. And so I just bring this up because Rachel is a link, an Old Testament link, to Mary as mother of the Messiah. I don t have time to do this in this video, but in my book Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary I have a whole chapter I m really excited about this particular part of the book showing how the New Testament depicts Mary as the new Rachel, as the new mother of the church, the mother Israel, and in particular as the mother of sorrows. Just as Rachel was sorrowful and suffered for and with her children in the Old Testament, so now Mary as the new Rachel suffers, in the sense mourns, for the sorrows of her children, but also intercedes for them and prays for them as a maternal intercessor with her people. In fact the Jews had a tradition that when Abraham and Jacob, and like some of the other patriarchs Abraham or Moses, when they would pray and ask God to bless the people of Israel, on one occasion God wouldn't listen to their prayers. But when Rachel interceded for the people of Israel God heard her prayers because of the sorrow and the suffering that she endured as the mother of Israel. So all that to say Micah here is describing this future time when the mother of the Messiah, who is kind of like a new Rachel, is going to give birth to the Messiah in

Bethlehem. Which is, by the way, where Rachel was buried, so it s all connected images to Rachel there. And that through her a ruler is going to come forth in Israel whose origin is from ancient days. And the Hebrew here is literally from the days of olam, the days of the age, or you can translate that from the days of eternity. So all the church fathers saw in that a kind of shadow or clue that this future king, who s going to be born in Bethlehem near where Rachel's tomb was, that this future king wouldn't just be an earthly king, that he would be a divine Messiah, because his origin was from eternity. A pre-existent Messiah who was not created when he came into the world but rather existed with the Lord and then assumes a human nature in the incarnation. And comes to us as man in this little city of Bethlehem, the town of David, the town near where Rachel the mother of Israel was buried by Rachel s tomb. Alright and then finally then, the last image that for the day that I want to highlight is the shepherd king. Because Micah says not only is this king the future Messiah going to be born in Bethlehem but he's going to come and he s going to act as a good shepherd. He s going to stand and feed his flock, he's going to gather his people together. And so the Responsorial Psalm today is kind of a psalm of praise to the shepherd of Israel who's going to come and save us. And so in Psalm 80 it says: Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou who leadest Joseph like a flock! Thou who art enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth before E'phraim and Benjamin That s the son of Rachel. and Manas'seh! Stir up thy might, and come to save us! So one of the things you ll see in Luke s gospel is that the first people the Messiah appears to are shepherds, right, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Why? Well, in part because Christ is not just the high priest, he's not just the true king, he s also going to be the good shepherd. He s going to be the shepherd king who

will gather the scattered children of God and bring them back into the one flock and the one fold of the kingdom of the Messiah. That's what we re celebrating today as we prepare for the Feast of Christmas. So before we close today I just want to give you a little spiritual nugget from the living tradition. This is from the writings of the Venerable Bede. He was one of the last of the early church fathers writing in Latin and this is what he said about Elizabeth's words to Mary in the Visitation. He interprets those words not just as a reference to Mary as the mother of the Messiah but also to Mary as a new Eve who undoes the effects of the first Eve. Listen to what Bede said: Blessed are you among women since through your virginal birth the curse of the first mother [Eve] was turned away from those born of women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb since through you we have recovered both the seed of incorruption and the fruit of our heavenly inheritance, which we lost in Adam. 2 That s Bede s Homilies on the Gospels, number one, paragraph four. Now that s an interesting parallel. Although Luke himself doesn't make explicit that Mary is a new Eve in the Visitation, Bede there is emphasizing the imagery of fruit. The fruit of Mary's womb as a kind of echo of the Book of Genesis, right. So if you think about it for just a minute. How does the world fall into sin and death? Well it s through partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So Adam and Eve bring sin and death in the world by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and so he says likewise Mary, who is the new Eve, is going to bring salvation into the world through the fruit. Not of the tree of knowledge but the fruit of her womb. So it s kind of an echo of Genesis. So in other words, what Bede is saying here is that in so far as Christ is the new Adam and Mary is the new Eve, what Christ's incarnation means for us is not just the coming of the king of Israel, not just the coming of God into the world, but ultimately the undoing of the effects of the fall of Adam and Eve. That the fruit of Mary's womb is going to undo original sin, suffering, and death that were brought about through the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that is definitely good news. 2 Bede, Homilies on the Gospels, 1.4; trans. L. T. Martin and D. Hurst, p. 33