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.