FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT – B – 2020
- The
liturgy invites us to reflect on Mary, the mother of Jesus, and in Jesus
as the descendent of David, the Son of God who wants to be born among us.
- He
does not need a temple because he wants to be among us.
FIRST READING – 2
Sm 7:1-5. 8-11.16
« The two axes of the Nathan’s
prophecy are: the temple and the descendants.
« The author will play with
the meaning of house, that can be “the
house of God” and the “royal house” or dynasty.
« David wants to build a
temple for the arc, so that it will have a house like he has a house.
« Nathan thinks that it is
a good idea, but God does not think so.
« God will give a
house-dynasty to David, as he has given him everything he has.
« God does not live inside
a temple made by human hands, God lives in the midst of his people, as we will
see in the Gospel reading.
RESPONSORIAL
PSALM – 89,2-3;4-5;27,29
R. For
ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
The promises of the LORD I will sing forever;
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim
your faithfulness.
For you have said, “My kindness is established
forever”;
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
R. Forever
I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
“I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
I have sworn to David my servant:
Forever will I confirm your posterity
and establish your throne for all generations.”
R. Forever
I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
“He shall say of me, ‘You are my father,
my God, the Rock, my savior.’
Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him,
and my covenant with him stands firm.”
R. Forever I will
sing the goodness of the Lord.
Ø
What is the fidelity and mercy that the psalmist thinks to proclaim
always?
o
The fidelity of God to his promise of building a house to David, that
is “a dynasty” a continuity to his royal family.
o
The Messiah will be born from this dynasty.
o
God says that David will be able to call him Father.
o
Yes, God is Father not only of David, but of every human being He has
created.
Ø
We will repeat like a background music during our celebration that we want to
proclaim forever the goodness of the Lord until the end of our days.
SECOND READING Rm 16:25-27.
ü We are going to read the final doxology of Paul’s letter to
the Romans.
ü A doxology is a formula of
praise to God, to the Most Holy Trinity.
ü This doxology is the
fruit of a long and deep reflection of the Christian community. Maybe a
Christian well knowledgeable of Paul’s theology had intended to synthetize his whole
theological thought.
o
Paul says that he preaches Jesus Christ, that he preaches the Gospel. We
can then say that Christ is really the gospel, the good news.
o
This Gospel reveals the mystery hidden for long. The mystery that
Christ has come to reveal to us about the love of the Father. Because this is
the mission that Christ came to fulfill among us “to reveal who the Father is,
how is God”
o
And this mystery by the will and command of God has been made
manifested to the gentiles, that is to every human being that God has
created as his son or daughter, even if
sometimes he or she does not know that God loves them.
o Gloy to Him, the only wise, be given by Jesus Christ forever.
GOSPEL Lc 1:26-38
- The gospel of this
fourth Sunday of Advent is the same we have read in the solemnity of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary.
- The day of the
Immaculate Conception, we read this evangelical text, looking at Mary
Immaculate. Mary the woman of Genesis who will fight always against
evil.
- This fourth Sunday
our eyes are on Jesus, the Son of the Father, the Son of David who becomes
flesh in Mary’s womb.
- We may reflect on
several themes and all can help us to live with a greater depth the
mystery we celebrate:
- The difference
between the annunciation of the birth of John and the birth of Jesus:
- The birth of John
is announced in Jerusalem, to Zachariah, a priest, in the most sacred
place of the Temple where Zachariah has come to offer the sacrifice to
God.
- The birth of Jesus
is announced in Nazareth, little town of Galilee from where nothing good
can come, to Mary a very young woman, of whom we do not know what she
was doing when the Angel spoke to her.
- Jerusalem is the
center of the religious and political life of Israel, a beloved place
for any Jew. Nazareth is in a
region that the chief priests of Israel consider not so good due that its
inhabitants have frequent communication with the pagan peoples that
surround them.
- And Jesus will
present himself and a simple peasant, who announces the unconditional love of
God, and who will have a great respect for the women he finds on his
life journey, and he will give back to them their dignity that society
does not acknowledge.
- The theme of the
Arc of the Covenant and the Temple
- David swants to
build a temple to put in it the arch of the covenant, to give it the due
respect.
- But God does not
want to stay in a temple. God will come
to us and will journey in
the midst of his people, he will share its simple life, its difficulties, sufferings and joys.
There in the midst of the people is where his contemporaries will find
him, as well as we.
- The temple will
always be necessary for the people, as a place to meet and to give
communal or individual praise to Him, thanking him for his deep and
unconditional love toward us.
- Mary is the arc of
the covenant, which carries in her not the stone tablets of the Law, but
the Law made flesh. She is also the true temple where humanity
and divinity are united forever in Jesus, true God and true man.
- We may say also
that Mary, the arc of the covenant, enters into the true Temple of God,
when she is overshadowed by the Spirit of God.
CLARETIAN CORNER
Many times, Christ our Lord has manifested Himself to me as a young
man with all His majesty. Some times I have seen His Divine Face and all His
Scared Humanity and it always broke my heart because I have never seen him
glorious but always suffering the most atrocious tortures as if wanting to
choke the Sacred Heart in His Holy Breast, more than once our Lord has told me,
“ cry, my daughter cry for the evils in the church that pierce My Heart”, and
with this, as if His Majesty would open His breast to show me His Heart
surrounded by thorns. Venerable
María Antonia París, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian
Missionary Sisters. Autobiography 14.
I was barely six when my parents sent me to school. My
first schoolmaster was a very active and religious man, Mr. Anthony Pascual .
He never punished or upbraided me, but I was careful not to give him any cause
for doing so. I was always punctual, always attended classes, and always
prepared my lessons carefully.
I learned the catechism so well that whenever I was asked
to I could recite it from beginning to end without a mistake. Three of the
other boys learned it as well as I had, and the teacher presented us to the
pastor, Dr. Joseph Amigo. This good man had the four of us recite the whole
catechism on two consecutive Sunday nights. We did it without a single mistake
before all the people in the church. As a reward he gave each of us a holy
card, which we have treasured ever since.. Saint
Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Religious of Mary Immaculate Claretian
Missionary Sisters. Autobiography
22 and 23.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo, text Luis Alonso
Schokel, adaptation of the text and commentaries :International Team.
Pagola,
José A. Following in the Footsteps of
Jesus. Convivium Press 2011.
Ravasi, Gianfranco, Según las Escrituras: doble comentario a las lecturas del domingo,
San Pablo 2005.
No comments:
Post a Comment