4th Sunday of Advent - Fr. Leo

Nothing is impossible for God.  This is the message of our gospel today.  It seems a simple straight forward maxim.  God can do the impossible.  Yet to embrace this truth, requires faith.  Without faith God’s omnipotence is simply a thought, but not an experience of something we may hope for, or wait for, in our heart of hearts.   

Not long ago, we reflected on the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  In that story, Jesus deliberately waited so it would be a true raising of the dead and not a curing of the sick.  Mary and Martha knew that if Jesus had been their Lazarus would not have died.  Yet, even then, they place their trust in him and witnessed a bodily raising of the dead, not only a spiritual resurrection.

When we think of raising of the dead, I don’t think we can help but be incredulous.  There is no reason in the world for us to think raising the dead is possible.  We look at it and say it is not possible scientifically or biologically.  Yet, this is the moment faith becomes real.  Only faith can open our hearts to believe what God can do even though it seems totally unreasonable to us.  

For Mary, in today’s gospel, faith and a new experiential knowledge come together.  But it takes a moment of trust. Trust in Gabriel, trust in God and the work of the Holy Spirit.  In the end, she simply says: “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done unto me according to God’s will.” And so it happened. Mary became the mother of the Son of God.

Advent faith is believing that God will come into our hearts and that we will be healed, loved into new life, and be on fire with the energy that is of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit alone. For this, we are called to believe in miracles and to believe that Gabriel will visit us so that we too may experience the transforming power of God’s love for us and through us for others. Let us then affirm our faith as we proclaim:  “God can and does do all things!”