CHRISTMAS, A TRUE LIFE LOVE STORY. (Homily for Monday of the 4th Week in Advent, Year C.)


Bible Study: Songs 2, 8 to 14. And Luke 1, 39 to 45.


At the very heart of our celebrations at Christmas is the fact of God’s love for us collectively as a human race and individually as his personal children. That God comes to us in the person of his son Jesus Christ as a baby is a testimony of his deep love which like that of a lover goes to any extent and is prepared to make any sacrifice just to be with the one who is loved.

No wonder then, our first reading today comes from the Songs of Solomon, a book which uses very raw terminology in speaking about love and the best way to read the book of Solomon is in the context in which it appears in our liturgy today; the context of God himself being the lover and we the beloved. Any other reading of the songs of Solomon that excludes God as the lover only amounts to some form of erotic imagination which can never exist anyway in reality, between humans.

Now, to assist us with a correct interpretation of the entire book of Songs, today’s selection is juxtaposed with the Gospel passage about the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

“The voice of my beloved, behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold he stands behind our wall gazing in at the windows… My beloved speaks and says to me: Arise…”. “In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country.” Do you see a connection here? The feet of Mary carrying God in her womb moving with haste to the house of Elizabeth becomes the one leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. “And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”

Mary is pregnant with Jesus who is God and love itself, and behold she is standing in front of the house of Elizabeth and she calls out in greeting. Mary’s voice becomes that of Jesus himself, being a young stag calling out in love. Her voice becomes the voice of the beloved spoken of by Solomon in the book of songs. Her voice brings joy and Elizabeth unable to hold herself responds “For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy.”

Nothing brings as much happiness and joy as the sound of a lover’s voice. Even if the lover in question were to be a fellow human being, you know how restless you become if you do not hear that voice a whole day yet that is a person who may break your heart at any time someday. How about if we channel our love to the one whose love is true, the one who will never give up on us, the love whose love for us is not predicated on our own goodness or what he stands to gain from us? How about if we respond in love to love itself and long for his voice as the songs of Solomon says?

When we engage in prayer, do we do so as people who are in deep communication with a lover? Do we allow our prayer spring from the heart? Or do we pray because we have been told to do so or because we want other people to hear us praying that they may praise us or fear us for being holy? When Jesus says we should go into our rooms, shut the door and pray in secret, he was telling us to do exactly what lovers do, they go into their room, shut the door, free themselves of distractions and communicate in secret.

The greatest difficulty we often encounter in spiritual life is the difficulty of accepting the fact that God loves us deeply in a way that no one else and nothing else can ever love us. We tend to have a distrust in God’s love and we are more prone to give our heart to persons or things rather than God himself because we assume God is too invisible to become the direct object of our love. We only begin to grow spiritually when we start developing eyes to see God beyond what our physical eyes can carry. We only begin to grow in spiritual life when we start loving God by longing for his voice in the scriptures daily. When last did your take time to read your Bible as a love letter written directly to you by God himself?

Christmas is more than eating and drinking. It is the coming of love into the world. Christmas is a love story, a meeting of a lover and the beloved, an incarnation of love in flesh and blood, an intermingling, a marriage so to say between the lover, God and the beloved, you. Christmas is about your true love coming to you. All other loves are simply imitations of the real. God alone love you so today, just long for your love, enjoy his presence, talk in love terms to him in prayer, spend time with your love in prayer and meditation and do so in a secret and quiet place free from the distractions of the world as Jesus himself often did when he went to a quiet place to pray, and at times spending whole nights alone in deep prayer.

Let us Pray:
Lord Jesus, I love you, deepen my love for you daily. Amen.


Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.

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