Joke: A wife complains to her husband, “From the day I married you till now, I haven’t received anything from you!” The husband protests, “It’s not true! You are received to be my wife, to be my parents’ daughter-in-law, to be a mother to all my children …” An elderly man observes the conversation happily supporting the husband saying, “What you just said is true. Men are the ones who lose after marriage.” The couple then asks the elderly man, “What have you lost?” “Losing Sleep,” he replied.

Today is the last Sunday of Advent in preparation for the celebration of the Birth of the Lord. During these past few weeks, this past week and today particularly, the Church focused on some special people surrounding the birth of Jesus such as Saint Joseph, John the Baptist, and the angels, especially the angel Gabriel, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary. Today, the Church focuses especially on Mary, the one who conceives and bears the Son of God in her womb by the Power of the Holy Spirit. What is special about Mary? What is it to do with us?

In today’s Gospel, Saint Luke begins with the scene of Mary hurrying in haste to go to visit her cousin Elizabeth after she is announced by the angel Gabriel that her cousin has been pregnant for six months. In this visitation, there are several thoughts for us to meditate on throughout this Christmas season. In these thoughts, two I would like to share with you today on Mary’s intimacy with the Lord that her fiat in the Lord encourages her to bring the future Savior to humanity.

First, Mary must have a deep intimate relationship with the Lord to hear and to believe in the message of the angel that she goes in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth. In some verses before today’s Gospel reading, the message of the angel is a frightening message that Mary has no relation with a man, but she’s found pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. However, with her fiat, deep faith, and total trust in the Lord, Mary says “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word”, just one verse before today’s Gospel reading. The fact of having no relation with a man and yet conceiving and bearing a son is against the natural law that is a woman, to be naturally pregnant, she has to have a relation with a man. I’m not talking about the implantation of technology nowadays. Yet, the Lord in his power looks upon Mary and chooses her to conceive a Son. He prepared her immaculate womb to bear the Son of God and God himself, and we celebrate her immaculate conception on December 8 each year. This is saying that we have to accept the fact that we are human beings and that many times in our lives things happen that we might not understand nor explain with our knowledge and understanding but believe that God is involved in the situation. Nothing that we called “co-incident” or “it’s just happened for no reason”. Everything happens in our lives, I believe, God’s hands are mysteriously leading us. We just need to acknowledge and let him control us or not. It will depend on the free will that He installs in us the moment that we are conceived in our mother’s womb.

Secondly, Mary’s greeting to Elizabeth is not only to bring Jesus, the Savior, to Elizabeth alone but also to her unborn son, John the Baptist who is still in her womb. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the son in her womb leaped for joy. The joy of both the mother and the unborn son in her womb is overwhelmed by the visitation of the Mother of the Lord, Elizabeth shouted out, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The image of the womb and the six months pregnant that Elizabeth is portrayed describes the earth and the time that each one of us is living in now. Scripture does not tell us what the condition of Elizabeth was before the visitation of Mary, but it’s not easy and fun that mothers can testify. All the aches, pain, mood changes, losing weight and sleep, short breath, you name it that mothers experience during the pregnancy. So, I believe, Elizabeth would experience the same. Scripture tells us that at the visitation of Mary, both Elizabeth and the unborn baby John filled with joy. Just as in the womb with a web of organs that the unborn baby has no choice but to attach to the mother’s umbilical cord, we are living in this world with all the attractions and good and bad that sometimes we cannot control. But just as Elizabeth allows Mary to bring Jesus into her pregnancy, let’s us invite Mary to bring Jesus into our mother’s womb which is our house, our school, our Church, our society, our world which is wired with a web of goods and bad such generosity and jealousy, honesty and cheating, kind and unkind, love and hatred, peace and violence, and many more that we are all in this mother’s womb. The umbilical cord that can nurture us and keep us alive is the Eucharist which is the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ. The question is: Have we allowed ourselves and surrendered ourselves to let the Lord feed us and nurture us through the teaching of the Church like the umbilical cord that transfers the food from the mother’s womb to the unborn baby?

What have we learned from the visitation of Mary? Just as Mary brings Jesus, who is the Source of life, to Elizabeth, what have we brought to others when we pay a visit to them? Just as Mary comes to visit Elizabeth during her pregnancy and stays to help her till she successfully finishes her labor, have we come to visit others, especially our loved ones, only when they are healthy and sound or when they are sick or even close to death? Mary brought joy not only to Elizabeth but to John, her son, as well, have we opened up ourselves to allow Mary to bring her Son Jesus to us, especially when we are struggling, experiencing difficulties and challenges that knitted together a web that shuts off our joy, happiness, and peace that the Lord first intended from the beginning of creation? In anticipating for second Coming of the Lord and waiting to celebrate the Birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, what should we do to others, especially to our loved ones? The decision is yours.