Luke 1:39-45 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
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In James Alison's video homily for Advent 4C 2021 (link below) he links some of the crucial words and phrases in this text (eg. "with haste", "leaped in her womb", "exclaimed with a loud cry", "the child in my womb leaped for joy"), which are almost certainly deliberate references by the author of Luke to verses and passages in the Hebrew scriptures with which his intended audience would have been familiar.
Following are the concluding words of the homily:
"Well, I don't know whether this is Elizabeth talking about herself, or about Mary, or about both of them - “Blessed are the women who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” So it's Mary's fulfillment and it's Elizabeth's fulfillment. But what they are doing is just acting out major fulfillments, that's what's going on. It's not only the pregnancies, it's the fact that it's the final coming of the one who Malachi had prophesied, who Isaiah had prophesied, who David had been the predecessor of, [and also] the Levites. You see how this wonderful text is constructed so as to prepare us for what is the great birth, which is the moment when God gives birth in human form, through the virgin, to God."
- James Alison, from "Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2021" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4aDWAmlITk)
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"Elizabeth carries the pre-natal John the Baptist who opens the way for God's Son. In Luke's story, John the Baptist, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, knows he is the forerunner of God's Messiah even before he is born and leaps for Joy three months prior to his birth when in Messiah's presence.
"There is a sense in which the pregnant Mary is like the true church. Like the true church, Christ is hidden in her body, active and growing within. Like the church, Mary has received God into herself and allowed herself to be a vehicle of blessing to all human-kind.
"Just as Mary took in God, we take in God today in receiving Communion. In eating the bread and drinking the wine we take into our bodies the very presence of the Holy. We become inhabited by the Eternal One; overwhelmed by his body broken for us, and profoundly nurtured by his blood of forgiveness poured out that we might drink it and live. In receiving communion we become inhabited by Pure Love.
"How blessed are we! We have been blessed beyond our wildest imagination. Our spirits leap with joy. We are discovering that the Lord has fulfilled his promises and new life does stretch out before us endlessly. Thanks be to God!"
- Thomas L. Truby, from reflection delivered on 20 December, 2015 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Advent4-2015-Surprised-by-Joy.pdf)
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that you should come to us?
Yet you have visited your people
and redeemed us in your Son.
As we prepare to celebrate his birth,
make our hearts leap for joy at the sound of your Word,
and move us by your Spirit to bless your wonderful works.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near:
your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
Amen.
- Opening Prayer from Roman Catholic liturgy for Advent 4C
[Source of link to Tom Truby reflection, and for analysis and discussion on all this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/advent4c/]
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