Advent 4C: Entrusting our "mud pies" to each other's sympathetic consideration (Luke 1:39-45; 22 Dec 2024)

A reflection on the Gospel of the Visitation (Luke 1:39-45), written and spoken by Kieran J. O'Mahony OSA. 

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Gentle piano music to close the meditation

Transcript

John’s Lane
D08 F8NW

22 December 2024
Luke 1:39-45

Welcome
The things we do at Christmas time are very human and life-affirming: we meet and we exchange greetings and we give gifts and we celebrate. In other words, we make contact with family and friends, we make the effort to connect, even with people we might not see that often. 

Topic
It may help to reflect on that before we celebrate the feast of Christmas itself and  in the days that follow. Our Gospel today is inspiring. 

Steps
The story of the visitation illustrates in a particularly intense way our human encounters. A successful coming together has three characteristics, what I call the three Rs: to receive, to recognise and to reciprocate. Elizabeth receives Mary, while recognising who she is, in a rich and joyful way. The encounter triggers a prayer in Mary, “My soul glorifies the Lord my spirit rejoices in God my saviour” (not in the reading). Both women are full of joy, in Luke’s narrative. They receive each other, they recognise each other and they reciprocate. The encounter is joyful, affirming and refreshing. Something similar happens, somewhat more mysteriously, between the children they are carrying. 

Once of my favourite poets, Malcolm Guite has a good reflection on the Visitation: 

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young’,
Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime’
They sing today for all the great unsung
Women who turned eternity to time
Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth
Prophets who bring the best in us to birth

A high reflection, perhaps, but we can bring it down to earth as Guite would wish! As we look ahead to the coming festivities, it is no harm to reflect on what I hope the various gatherings will bring about. Will we find ourselves refreshed and renewed? Will our meeting up with family and friends be life-giving, life-affirming, even joyful? The key is not to rely too much on the externals, fun and important as they are. Instead, we are to receive each other, to recognise each other and we reciprocate. This works, if we really do meet and not just spend time in the same place. It means letting something of our inner world be seen and getting in touch with what is important in the lives of others. It is never too late to learn these three Rs!

Conclusion
An American philosopher of art, Suzanne Langer, once put it like this (writing about art): some of the deep delight in life comes from entrusting our mud pies to each other’s sympathetic consideration. At Christmas we entrust not just our mud pies but ourselves to each other’s sympathetic consideration. We that happens, we will all be refreshed, affirmed and restored. 

You may have noticed a rare omission in my reflection: God! But God is there in the human encounter precisely because the Word become flesh and lived among us. More plainly put, we read in the first letter of St John: (as long quotation)

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. (1John 4:7-12)

May we feel the quickening kick of grace this Christmas!