The Fourth Sunday of Advent

The following is a preview from the Comprehensive Catholic Lectionary, a project by women priests Jane Via and Nancy Corran that aims to include every significant story about women in the bible, eliminate exclusive language for God and humans, and bring a spectrum of Biblical theologies to readers and communities.

Download the complete Advent and Christmas section of the Lectionary to access the entire offering including background notes, alternative readings, and responsorial psalms.

15th c. Icon by Andrej Rublev: The Hospitality extended by Sarah and Abraham at Mamre to the holy “visitors”

Readings: 1 Sam 1.1-3a, 7, 9-11, 13-17, 20; 2:1, 4-7, 8a-d (edited); Psalm: 1 Sam 2:2-11 (Hannah’s song); Romans 8:22-26
; Luke 1:39-56

Call to Prayer (from our second reading in Romans)

Hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with endurance.  Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our tender fragility; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

Reflections

First Reading

The status, security (care), and even voice, of Hebrew women in the ancient world came first through their fathers. In maturity, it was procured through their husbands. Then, they were “saved” through child-bearing, preferably to a son. In that order. There was little other way forward for a woman. When Hannah prayed for a child of her own, she was also praying for her personhood in political society. Her prayer was an act of social justice, for something not yet seen.

Hannah, in hopeless grief, prayed. Prayer can be “hope in the face of hopelessness.” Although Hannah was praying “in the spirit”, perhaps with “sighs too deep for words,” the priest thought she was drunk. Perhaps he would have used the word “hysterical,” as some do, derogatorily, today. Eli, a priest, acknowledged that he had misjudged her. A priest confessing a wrong openly is an act of accountability, thus also an act of social justice. To press justice further, Eli was wrong not only in misjudging her, but in judging her at all. What if she were drunk not only in sorrow but wine? Would that have excused him?

We know that it does not always work out well for women in difficult or desperate situations, even with fervent prayer. And we know that those in positions of power often don’t confess their faults. But we are here to be the midwives of a new way forward for both.

Psalm Hannah’s Song

Not infrequently, the Hebrew Bible breaks into song. (As examples, Miriam after the crossing of the Red Sea; Jonah in the belly of the big fish; prophets who undoubtedly sang many of their poetic oracles; and the Psalter which was a collection of songs that could have been employed for a variety of occasions.) Here, Hannah sings of God’s ways which turn the world on its head: Those in need and in poverty are raised from dust and ashes, seated in places of honor, while the bows of the mighty are broken. “God puts to death… and raises up again.” Hannah’s song is summarized, “Not by might does one prevail” (1 Sam 2:9). From Hannah, we learn that Jesus’ message of a loving God, a God of justice and humble service, a God whose power is in and through “weakness,” even a God of resurrection, was not a new message. This liberating God of the disenfranchised is found (foundationally) in the Hebrew Scriptures (“Old Testament”), yea, since the beginning. This upside down God is praised in song by Hannah.

Second Reading

The mystery of Creation, of the Cosmos, with its own vibrant and even violent stages of being formed, being born, living, and dying, reminds us that the Cosmos (space, stars, planets…) is not just our home, but it is us: We are cosmic matter and we belong to cosmic consciousness. In our living and dying, we too are always birthing something new, some new incarnation of What Is, God, Reality, Mystery, Justice, Love. Labor pains included.

Gospel Reading Singing Our Mothers’ Songs

It is no secret that the “Magnificat” is Mary’s cover of Hannah’s song. God’s topsy-turvy power that was at work for Hannah, is at work again. When Mary sings Hannah’s song, a connection is made across time and space to remind the early Church of their Judean roots, and their foremothers in the faith. The name Elizabeth, along with her priestly origins, would have conjured Elisheba (Elizabeth in Hebrew), whose husband was Aaron. She was the founder and first mother of the Levitical priesthood. Again, Luke is reminding the early church of its beginnings.

“The Windsock Visitation”; by Brother Michael O’Neill McGrath, www.beestill.org

Luke alone among the Gospel writers felt a need to yoke Jesus and John in their origin stories, showing how John came first and prepared the way for Jesus. One might deduce that the followers of Jesus in those early decades after his death and resurrection appearances were courting the followers of John to join their movement.

Unity in faith is an elusive thing, even and perhaps especially for those first Judean (Jewish) followers who only much later would come to be called “Christians.” Thank goodness for those who seek and forge comm-unity, like Luke, for his enterprise has given us the beautiful stories of Elizabeth and Mary. It is a story of encounter. Pope Francis has asked the people of the church to be people of encounter, crossing barriers, extending hospitality to those who differ from oneself in any way.

As Advent yields to Christmas, we remember how the preparation for Jesus’ birth was filled with both fear and joy. As we prepare to encounter God in counter-intuitive ways (topsy turvy) in Christmas, may we have the courage to reach out across barriers, as did God, as did Mary and Elizabeth, to see what child might be born unto us, to see what joy might come.

Silence

Commitments

Acting

Into what situation can we bring song and music – which is prayer itself – perhaps for those who have no words with which to pray?

What can we do to honor Earth, from whose belly we came, and which sustains us, in its/our ongoing Creation?

What can we do, with our own resources, to extend hospitality to those in their hour of need?

How can we be “#girls who support girls,” women who support women, men who support women – people who support people of all genders in the challenges and joys that come with their state?

Waiting and Preparing

For Hannah, may we remember those bereft of place in society

not because of anything they have done, but because of who they are.

With Hannah, may we yet turn to prayer in our incomprehensible grief,

and pray in song when joy comes, as did Mary.

With Paul, may we wonder at our larger cosmic context,

trusting that pain is not futile, but can be fertile.

With Elizabeth, may we be people of encounter, hospitality and blessing,

knowing our guests bear God within.

May we all birth God anew…