Homilies

4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT: THE VISITATION, A PROFOUND EXPRESSION OF LOVE AND JOY

THE SCENE IN the Gospel for this Sunday illustrates the joy the two pregnant women, Mary and Elizabeth, were sharing during the Visitation. Mary had to take a long and difficult journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth in order to share how ecstatic she was by being pregnant. Elizabeth in turn was all praise for Mary and even the baby in her womb also jumped for joy.
 
Mary and Elizabeth both had a common understanding of pregnancy as grace and blessing from God. For them, pregnancy is not a failure of contraceptive method caused by ineffective intake of abortive pills or untimely withdrawal. Hence, the two women were proud and grateful to God for their being pregnant.
 
Sad to say, it is not surprising nowadays to hear of children who were products of unwanted pregnancies. I, for one, had the experience of meeting an intelligent professional who was a product of unwanted pregnancy. Though she excelled academically and graduated with flying colors, deep inside, she suffers a serious inferiority complex.
 
Visitation should be an occasion for genuine love to unfold. Let me illustrate it by few examples:
 
1. Forty two years ago, I had amusing understanding on the effects of constant visitation. A lady cousin of mine, who lived close to our house, had regular visitor during weekend, her boyfriend. Her joy was beyond description upon seeing her boyfriend visit her. After over a year of regular visits by her boyfriend, they got married.  They now have two grown-up sons. I visited them lately when I was home for a short vacation and I could see that, although they are already in their late 60's, their love for each other never fades. They told me that their sons have families of their own, yet they still come to visit them usually during weekend and other important occasions. Visitation for them is a happy event, not only to see their sons, but their daughter-in-laws and grandchildren too.
 
The aforesaid brief narrative, though nothing extraordinary, shows the ubiquitous effects of love nurtured by constant interaction through visitations.
 
2. For pastoral purpose, a visitation by priest to his brother priest is our relevant example. Every time a priest visits his brother priest, for instance, could be a source of mutual enrichment on their commitment to the ministry (cf. 1 Thes 2:11-13)  and consequently make them conscious of their pastoral duties too to visit their parishioners.
 
The visitation event in the Gospel, therefore, did not become the second joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary without reason. It has a noble purpose to make us realize that we are social beings, endowed with serious responsibility to improve our interpersonal relationship {cf. 1 Cor. 13).  Mary and Elizabeth beyond doubt gave us the classic example of understanding visitation as a profound expression of love and joy.
 
May this season of Christmas be for us an occasion not only to visit our friends and loved ones, but also those people who are lonely and seemingly neglected in the society.
 

                                      [FR. JOOLS AMAMANGPANG MSP
                                            Diocese of Hsinchu, Taiwan]

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