Fr Billy Swan
Dear friends. One of the most delightful places to be at this time of year is the arrivals hall at Dublin airport. For ten years when I lived abroad, it was great to come home for Christmas and a joy to come around the corner with your bags and see your family and friends waiting to welcome you home. If ever you have been on the other side, waiting for loved ones to arrive, you can feel the buzz and the excitement as you wait and as you watch the joy on peoples faces with hugs and laughter as people are reunited once again.
The Gospel on this fourth Sunday of Advent also features a joyful reunion between two women who are cousins, friends with both being pregnant. This episode is included in the Joyful mysteries of the rosary for we can sense the joy of both women who are united again, and who rejoice in how God has blessed them. For both Mary and Elizabeth, their joy has a source. It is not just a good feeling but a deeper joy that flows from Christ being near. This is why the unborn John the Baptist leaps for joy in his mother’s womb when he hears Mary’s greeting and senses the closeness of the Lord.
In the Christmas story, this theme of the joy that comes from being close to God reappears again in Mary’s Magnificat when her spirit rejoices in God her Saviour and when the angels bring the shepherds news of great joy that a Saviour has been born nearby, a joy to be shared with the whole world.
As we prepare to welcome visitors this Christmas and be welcomed ourselves into the homes of others, let this important message be in our hearts and minds. Happy reunions at airports, train and bus stations are good. But what brings joy is being close to God as we see from the Gospel. For without that inner peace that flows from Christ being at the centre, good moods are vulnerable to old tensions rising again and patience being tested as we spend more time together. What we long for is not so much happiness but joy that flows from being known by God, loved by God, saved by God and being in a trusting and loving relationship with Him.
Here at the Eucharist this evening/this morning, we have the opportunity to be close to God in a wonderful way and to let him draw close to us as we welcome him into our souls, bodies and lives when we receive him in Holy Communion. Because when we receive the Eucharist, the Lord is not just near us but within us. And it is there that he wishes to be – at the centre of everything, the axis around which everything else turns and finds harmony, the source of our joy and the peace that unites us together this Christmas.
One prayer from the Mass sums all this up. It comes at the offertory when the priest adds a drop of water to the wine in the chalice and offers the following prayer: ‘By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity’. Here is the mystery of Christmas prolonged and made present for all time.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this week, may we join with the unborn John the Baptist and share the joy of Christ's presence and closeness.
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