21 December 2017
Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
O Morning Star, splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
As Elizabeth looked out over the hilly landscape, her hands resting on her growing belly, she saw what at first seemed simply a sweet coincidence: her kinswoman, Mary, many years her junior, coming over the hill to visit. Yet “when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting” this sweet coincidence became like a rising dawn, the “splendor of light eternal and sun of righteousness.”
The infant within her leapt and so, too, did her heart as she realized the significance of little John’s sudden movement: he was announcing to her the advent of the Lord for Whom he came into the world. The angel had told her husband that John would “be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb,” and the same Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary and conceived within her the Son of God bound these two infants in a way even the nascent Forerunner could sense, his whole being rejoicing in it. Elizabeth—meaning “My God is an oath”—is enlightened to the reality that all that God has promised in the past has come to fulfillment: He has kept His word by sending His Word. In the “darkness and the shadow of death” the Morning Star shines. Indeed, St. Elizabeth, whose God is an oath, “Blessed also are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!”
In four days we rejoice at the birth of Our Lord, when the Eternal Word is uttered into the world of Man and the echo of God’s promise thunders over the whole of the earth. In four days we recall the moment when the night of death and sin first began to burn away at the rising of the Son of God. Trust in God and His promises! Trust, and live faithfully according to His promises and you, too, will be blessed for your belief. Your heart, too, will leap for joy at the Virgin’s greeting when, at life’s end, she says to you, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you, for you remained with Him.”