{"id":1989,"date":"2016-12-18T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T14:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2016-12-18T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T14:34:16","slug":"4th-sunday-in-advent-year-a-homily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/4th-sunday-in-advent-year-a-homily\/","title":{"rendered":"4th Sunday in Advent, Year A – Homily"},"content":{"rendered":"

4th<\/sup> Sunday in Advent, Year\u00a0A<\/a>
\nIsaiah 7:10-14
\nPsalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 (7c, 10b)
\nRomans 1:1-7
\nMatthew 1:18-24
\nDecember 18, 2016<\/p>\n

Isaiah offers a sign to King Ahaz but the king refuses.\u00a0 He tries to make his refusal look noble by saying, \u201cI will not ask, I will not tempt the Lord!<\/em>\u201d but what is really going on is that Ahaz thinks he can do it all himself.\u00a0 He has formed human alliances that he thinks will make him look great but he is wrong.\u00a0 Israel will fall.<\/p>\n

Even though Ahaz refuses to ask for a sign, Isaiah still tells of the sign that the Lord will offer, \u201cthe virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 The name \u201cEmmanuel\u201d means \u201cGod is with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, as Christians, we know this prophecy to be fulfilled in Mary\u2019s giving birth to Jesus.\u00a0 Ahaz would not let the Lord enter so he would have the glory of the kingship for himself.\u00a0 Mary, on the other hand, responded to God with, \u201cBehold I am the handmaid of the Lord, may be done to me according to your word<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is where we are at now.\u00a0 Mary is pregnant.\u00a0 In fact, with one week to go till Christmas, Mary is \u201cvery pregnant.\u201d\u00a0 Mary rejoiced that she had been chosen to be the mother of Jesus.\u00a0 She accepted the gift of life in her womb.<\/p>\n

However, Joseph was greatly troubled by Mary\u2019s pregnancy.\u00a0 He knew he was not the father.\u00a0 To him, this had to mean that Mary had been unfaithful.\u00a0 Joseph was a righteous man and was troubled as to what to do.\u00a0 Jewish law would have allowed him to have her stoned but he knew he didn\u2019t want to do that.\u00a0 So, he made plans to \u201cdivorce her quietly.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

That was not what God wanted.\u00a0 So God sent an angel to speak to Joseph in a dream to tell him, \u201cDo not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 The angel told Joseph that Mary had conceived \u201cthrough the Holy Spirit<\/em>\u201d and how this fulfilled the prophecy we heard in our first reading.<\/p>\n

This was enough for Joseph.\u00a0 As a righteous man, his greatest desire was to follow God\u2019s Will.\u00a0 So he did as the angel had directed and took Mary into his home and they raised Jesus together.\u00a0 Now, both Mary and Joseph had said yes to the gift of life in Mary\u2019s womb.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t going to be an easy life.\u00a0 We will hear next week at Christmas how Jesus was born and laid in a manger.\u00a0 The Holy Family will have to flee to Egypt.\u00a0 Mary will be at the foot of the Cross when Jesus is crucified.<\/p>\n

Neither Mary nor Joseph had put any conditions to their \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0 They did not demand that raising Jesus be easy.\u00a0 They simply trusted that God would get them through whatever would happen.<\/p>\n

Because they said yes, next week we will look at the baby Jesus in the manger and say \u201cEmmanuel, God is with us.\u201d\u00a0 For now, the image that might be most fitting is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary pregnant.<\/p>\n

Seeing Mary pregnant is to be an image of hope for us.\u00a0 It should stir great anticipation in us of what is to come, new life.<\/p>\n

Are you ready for this new life?<\/p>\n

One might respond by saying we already have Jesus in our lives so of course we are ready.\u00a0 True\u2026in Baptism we receive the gift of new life but how much do we let the Lord fully enter into our lives?\u00a0 Or do we keep him at a distance?\u00a0 Do we keep God in just one corner of our lives?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken this Advent already of how much time we put into getting ready for our Christmas celebrations compared to how much time we give to God.\u00a0 So how are you doing?<\/p>\n

We look at baby Jesus and we feel joy.\u00a0 We feel hope.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because when we look at Jesus we see the \u201cface of God.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4th Sunday in Advent, Year\u00a0A Isaiah 7:10-14 Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 (7c, 10b) Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-24 December 18, 2016 Isaiah offers a sign to King Ahaz but the king refuses.\u00a0 He tries to make his refusal look noble by saying, \u201cI will not ask, I will not tempt the Lord!\u201d but what is really …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘4th Sunday in Advent, Year A – Homily’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[223,62],"tags":[148,226,224,225],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-w5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1994,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/1994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}