Mary and the Hope of Advent

The Advent season, with its prophetic oracles, elegiac hymns and prayers quicken our desire for the coming of “the Day of the Lord,” for the parousia, the coming of Christ and the full establishment of the reign of God, the realm of justice and peace. We yearn for the day when the qualities of the Beatitudes that Jesus proclaimed in his sermon on the mount are realized.

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church shifts its attention to the Incarnation as the opening act in the great redemption. It takes up Mary’s song, the Magnificat. Mary sings of the Lord’s Day as something already accomplished.  The song is the triumphant proclamation that humanity has been reborn into a new and infinite life: the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The centre of life is restored to us. We can be fulfilled to infinity because those who learn to lose their lives find them again in God.

One of the loveliest of titles given to Mary by those who honour her is “the Morning Star,” the star that heralds the dawn of the Word in the world. Through the birth of her Son the whole world is reborn and renewed. Through the glory of her “ let it be to me according to your word” comes the Light of lights into the world and makes all things new.

The Morning Star is the star of joy because even despite sin and suffering the world is lovely again. There is joy because this is not an end but a beginning, the joyful sacrifice that precedes the eternal banquet; joy because just beyond us is the blazing Sun of the eternal noon, the new heaven and new earth that are the dwelling place of God among mortals, where God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.