22nd December - O King

O King whom all peoples desire – all peoples desire Him because they are made by Him as St Augustine reminds us: “You have made us for Yourself O God and our hearts are restless until we can rest in You.”  In our O Antiphon today we cry out to Him to come to save us reminding Him that He has made us from clay. We are fragile human beings, prone to sin and weakness but yet we are each unique and bear the image of our Maker. The Psalmist says: “He knows of what we are made, He remembers that we are dust” (Ps 102). We can be confident because the Son of God, on coming into the world, took on a body like ours, sin excepted. He has now gone into the presence of the Father where He stands and pleads for us.

I was looking for a particular painting or an icon that I saw some time ago of the Visitation but as usual, I couldn’t find it, but what struck me in all the many paintings and icons that I saw, mainly the paintings, was the absolute joy in this meeting of Mary and Elizabeth. In St Luke’s Gospel, the Angel Gabriel told Zachariah in the temple that the child in Elizabeth’s womb will be filled with the Holy Spirit, which made Elizabeth cry out ‘Blessed is the fruit of your womb, why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord’. One can’t help but wonder of what the conversations were like between Mary and Elizabeth for the next three months as Jesus and John were growing in their mother’s wombs. Even from His mother’s womb, Jesus was strengthening John for His mission to prepare a way for Him. This brings me to a prayer that is very close to me, and that is for the protection of the unborn.

The end of the gospel says ‘Blessed is she who believes that the promise made her by the Lord would be fullfilled’.

Blessed are we who believe in the Word of and keep it. If we believe what the Gospels are saying to us and open our hearts to the message, our hearts should jump for joy every time we come into the presence of God.