{"id":4714,"date":"2023-12-23T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T15:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2023-12-25T15:56:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T15:56:39","slug":"commentary-on-the-4th-sunday-of-advent-b-24-12-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-on-the-4th-sunday-of-advent-b-24-12-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on the 4th Sunday of Advent (B), 24.12.2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie <\/a><\/h3>\n

Lk 1:26-38<\/b><\/p>\n

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel as sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,\u00a0 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.\u00a0 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.”\u00a0 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.\u00a0\u00a0 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.\u00a0 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.\u00a0 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.\u00a0 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”\u00a0 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”\u00a0 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.\u00a0 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.\u00a0 For nothing will be impossible with God.”\u00a0 Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the prophets of Israel spoke of God’s intervention in human history, they imagined it as another thunderous event like Exodus or Mount Sinai.\u00a0 No one imagined that it would be an event so hidden in ordinariness as the conception of a child.<\/p>\n

There are many stories in world literature about the disappointment of expectation when the reality appears.\u00a0 The first play I ever saw in a theatre was called Professor Tim<\/em>.\u00a0 The main character was an elderly and wealthy relative whose return from America was eagerly awaited by his family in Ireland.\u00a0 Their disappointment was extreme when he arrived.\u00a0 He staggered around day after day with a whiskey bottle, making caustic remarks about everybody.\u00a0 He was quickly ostracised by everyone (but perhaps there was one exception, probably a local down-and-out; I can’t remember).\u00a0 At the end of the play he suddenly revealed that it was all an elaborate game to find out what they were really like.\u00a0 He disinherited the lot of them, and left all his wealth, I suppose, to the one person who didn\u2019t reject him.<\/p>\n

All such stories have some resonance of the Incarnation.\u00a0 Some great religious happening on a mountain-top or in the skies would compel your attention; it would impress you greatly but would not sift your spirit or test your depth.\u00a0 It would match your expectation, and would therefore not bring you to a new awareness.\u00a0 It would be all ‘out there’, and to that extent only a spectacle.\u00a0 We have a great hankering for religious visions and transparent messages, even long after all the \u2018moving statues\u2019 have stopped appearing to move.\u00a0 Our religious sensibility has been deeply affected by television and the cinema.\u00a0 But the Incarnation comes closer to us than any spectacle; it comes behind the eye, so to speak.<\/p>\n

I spent some time a few years ago in a Cistercian monastery.\u00a0 Monks have many choral Offices throughout the day, three of them being at 6 am (not the first of the day!), noon and 6 pm.\u00a0 As they stood in choir, waiting, facing the altar, the Angelus bell was rung.\u00a0 I expected that they would recite the Angelus, but instead they stood there in silence for a couple of minutes.\u00a0 Somehow it was deeply affecting. The Word became flesh\u00a0 –\u00a0 this<\/em> flesh.\u00a0 The Word entered our world silently, unobserved.\u00a0 “When peaceful silence lay over all, and night had run the half of her swift course, down from the heavens, from the royal throne, leapt your all-powerful Word” (Wisdom 18:14-15).<\/p>\n

In Nazareth the Catholics indicate Mary\u2019s house as the place of the Annunciation, while the Greek Orthodox indicate the site of the village well.\u00a0 Nobody knows where it took place, but the symbolism of both places is very affecting.\u00a0 The kitchen and the village well are the most ordinary places in a most obscure village.\u00a0 \u201cCan anything good come out of Nazareth?\u201d Philip asked.\u00a0 Yes, the greatest of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commentary by Donagh O\u2019Shea OP, www.goodnews.ie Lk 1:26-38 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel as sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,\u00a0 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.\u00a0 And he came to her and said, “Greetings,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8068,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions\/8068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}