4th Sunday of Advent — Luke 1:26–38
By: Vic Alcuaz
Tags: Bible, Christmas, The Sacraments, Jesus, Catholic

Vatican News shares this Sunday’s Gospel and reflections from Pope Francis

For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.

Reflections by Pope Francis

Throughout salvation history, the overshadowing of God has always guarded mystery, the overshadowing of God accompanied his people in the desert and the whole of salvation history, demonstrates that the Lord has always guarded the mystery.

He veiled the mystery, he did not publicize the mystery. A mystery that promotes itself is not Christian, it is not a mystery of God. The mystery of her motherhood remained hidden.

God’s overshadowing of us in our lives, helps us to discover our own mystery: our mystery of encounter with the Lord, the mystery of our life’s journey with the Lord. Each of us knows how mysteriously the Lord works in his or her heart and soul. And this is the overshadowing, the power, the Holy Spirit’s style, as it were, for veiling our mystery.

This overshadowing in us, in our lives, is called silence. Silence is the cloud that veils the mystery of our relationship with the Lord, of our holiness and of our sins.

It is a mystery that we cannot explain. But when there is no silence in our lives, we lose the mystery, it goes away. Hence the importance of guarding the mystery with silence: this is the cloud, this is God’s power in us, it is the strength of the Holy Spirit.

I think about how many times she remained silent, how many times she did not say what she felt in order to guard the mystery of her relationship with her Son.

In 1964, in Nazareth, Paul VI told us all that “we need to renew and strengthen, to fortify silence”, precisely because “silence guards the mystery” The Pope then gave voice to “the silence of Our Lady at the foot of the Cross”, as Pope John Paul II had done before him.

In reality, he said, the Gospel does not report any words from Our Lady. Mary “was silent, but within her heart how many things she said to the Lord” in that crucial moment in history. Likely, Mary would have thought back to the angel’s words regarding her Son: “On that day you told me he would be great! You told me he would be given the throne of David his father and that he would reign for ever! But now look there” at the Cross.

Mary, veiled in silence the mystery which she did not understand. And through silence she allowed the mystery to grow and flourish, thus bringing great hope to all.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Most High will overshadow you. The Lord veils his mystery. The mystery of our relationship with God, of our journey, of our salvation should not be aired or publicized. Silence should be its guard.

Pope’s final prayer

The Lord grant us all the grace to love silence, to seek it out, to have a heart guarded by the cloud of silence. Thus the mystery growing within us shall bear much fruit.