4th Sunday of Advent

Perhaps one of most the most wearing aspects of the pandemic is the uncertainty. Little possibility to plan anything, not knowing what will be happening next week and the constant question is it safe?

In a different situation its clear that Our Blessed Lady had similar concerns. Concerns which left her ‘deeply disturbed’, ‘afraid’ and asking ‘But how can this be?’.

But Our Lady has a certainty bringing reassurance and consolation and it’s a certainty offered to us. It comes from recognising that in the end she has nothing but what she has received from God. She does not depend on her own skills or resources or plans but upon the will of God from whom everything comes. ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let what you have said be done to me’.

We should on this last Sunday of Advent as we prepare to mark the Lord’s birth in restricted and unusual and unexpected ways ask Our Blessed Lady to guide us and inspire us as a loving Mother. To teach us that trust in God which comes from prayer, from a good life, from reading the scriptures. Which comes from realising that everything we have, every skill or ability, even life itself is a gift from God. And above all from realising that the fullness of God’s love is revealed in the One who goes lovingly to the cross so that nothing can separate us from his love.

Let us say as Christians have throughout the ages, in wars, plagues, persecution and disasters, let us say with the example of Our Lady before us ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God made visible in Jesus Christ’.