Texts taken from the “Sulla Tua Parola” Daily Missal November-December 2024

Fourth Sunday of Advent (C)
Fourth week, Psalter

FIRST READING

From the Book of the Prophet Micah (Mi 5:1-4a)
Thus says the Lord: «And you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, too small to be among the villages of Judah, from you will come forth for me the one who is to be ruler in Israel; his origin is from ancient times, from days of long ago. Therefore God will hand them over to others, until she who is to give birth has given birth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the children of Israel. He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord, by the majestic name of the Lord, his God. They shall dwell securely, for now his greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth. He himself shall be peace!». - The word of God.

Commentary on the first reading

Two contrasting elements appear in the reading: smallness and greatness. The village in which the Messiah will be born is among the most insignificant in Judea, yet the child to be born is described as the absolute ruler of the world. In ancient Israel, the law of Moses on Sinai was accompanied by the sound of trumpets, the smoking mountain, and magnificent signs; not to mention the ten plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea into two… all visible, noisy, grand events. But the farther sacred history progresses, the humbler the signs become, almost domestic and poor: water, bread, wine, oil. And yet, what is greater than the body of Christ (the sign of bread) and his blood (the sign of wine), and the other sacraments? Regarding the consecrated host, some theologians like to use the expression “everything in the fragment.” And so it is: in the sign of bread there is everything, because beyond Christ there is nothing. Christmas teaches us to recognize these “poor” signs: the child in the grotto is completely divine, but the “sign” is truly poor: only faith enables us to know him for what he truly is.

SECOND READING

From the Letter to the Hebrews (Heb 10:5-10)
Brothers and sisters, when entering the world, Christ says: «You desired neither sacrifice nor offering, but you prepared a body for me. You took no delight in holocausts or sin offerings. Then I said: “Behold, I come - for it is written of me in the scroll of the book - to do your will, O God”». After saying: «You neither desired nor delighted in sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings», which are offered according to the Law, he then says: «Behold, I come to do your will». He abolishes the first sacrifice to establish the new one. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. - The word of God.

Commentary on the second reading

«You prepared a body for me», we read today in the Letter to the Hebrews. The Word of God, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, did not have a human body before the world existed; he took it on later. For what reason? To open the kingdom of heaven not to our souls, but to us as complete human beings, with both soul and body. Through faith, in fact, we know that we will rise with our bodies and will precisely regain what we have now, with hands, arms, feet, hair, and everything else. Therefore Christ assumes a human body not only to atone for Adam’s sin through his offered suffering and death on the cross, but also to restore what had been intended from the beginning. Sin brought about the disaster of the body’s decay, suffering, and death, but now everything is restored. At death we will bid farewell to our bodies, only to take them up again, renewed and glorified, if we are found faithful in Christ Jesus. This is the truly great news that the apostles brought to the pagan world of their time. 

GOSPEL OF THE DAY

From the Gospel according to Luke (Lk 1:39-45 )
In those days, Mary set out and traveled in haste to the hill country, to a town of Judah. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and cried out in a loud voice: «Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Behold, as soon as your greeting reached my ears, the infant leaped for joy in my womb. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord». - The word of the Lord.

Commentary on the Gospel of the day

Mary most holy carries a secret in her heart that no one knows: she is pregnant with the Word of God. We cannot imagine how she experiences all this, but there is certainly in her a profound sense of wonder. Elizabeth, too, finds herself in the same state of secret, intimate inner joy, because she has become a mother at an advanced age, when she no longer hoped for it. She knows nothing about her distant cousin, but when she sees her arrive and hears her greeting, an “electric current” discharges within her, and in a second she understands the situation. It is the current of the Holy Spirit, who communicates the truth: Mary is pregnant with her Lord. Elizabeth is astonished, but she does not lose herself in useless considerations. For an Israelite, it was impossible to imagine this, since the Lord God is beyond the heavens and his cloud at most covers the Temple of Jerusalem. Yet Elizabeth does not doubt for a moment; she says what the Spirit has communicated to her. The meeting between the two women is like an explosion of uncontainable joy: it is the first song of freely given love to rise from earth toward God and his work: God is coming, God communicates himself, God is here. The rest will come later: for now there is overflowing gratitude and praise.