Reflection for the Vigil of the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2011
December 17, 2011

by Marcia Ziska, OSB

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Luke 1:26-38

This year Advent began for me at Covenant Monastery where I took a few days of retreat with Sister Linda. She shared a reflection with me from Caryll Houselander’s book, A Child in Winter. In it was an invitation to find rest and quiet which I welcomed. Another invitation appeared as well ... an invitation to “secret ourselves with Mary, to join our hearts with hers and to grow pregnant with God together.” The quiet atmosphere and solitude of the retreat setting provided space to ponder those tender words. The advent readings of the past three weeks and the feasts of Mary recently celebrated continue to remind me of that invitation.

Our readings tonight follow suit. The prophet Zephaniah bids us to “exult and be glad with all your heart; the Lord is in your midst ... you have no reason to fear.” The angel Gabriel addresses Mary “do not be afraid ... you have found favor with God.” As Mary is chosen, so too, you and I are chosen. Mary is the dwelling place of God. Similarly, the Lord dwells in our midst. God comes to make a home in our hearts. That in itself is cause enough to rejoice. Yet there is more to ponder.

Mary’s “yes” to bearing God in her womb changed her life and that of Joseph’s. God’s intervention into human history is nothing but mind-boggling. I daresay Mary, as a fourteen-year-old, had NO idea of what was being asked or where it might lead. Yet, in obedience, she made a huge leap of trust, a leap of faith and of hope. My own “yes” to each of you and yours to me some 34 years ago has changed me and challenged me in trust and certainly deepened my faith and hope. Perhaps similar experiences in your life have done the same for you.

Like Mary, you and I have been called to bear God in our hearts. That is one of Advent’s purposes: to become more God-like. Christmas highlights the belief that God is in all of us. Both readings tonight reiterated that reality. We can ignore this belief, or we can help God be found in each other. God is active through each of us for each other. Fr. Ed Hays says: “Each of us is an emerging Emmanuel.”

We have one full week of Advent before us. What will it hold for you? for me? for us as community? What is its invitation? This week I invite you to be with Mary in her pregnancy. As the week unfolds, may we, in the words of Houselander, “grow large with the abundance of God’s favor and fill our lungs deeply with God so that we can breathe Christ into our world.” Soon, we will sing Mary’s Magnificat. Let us be mindful that Mary held in her arms the God of love that we might hold in our hearts the love of God.

© 2011 Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas