At this point of our Advent preparations, do we find ourselves preoccupied to some extent with gift-hunting, anxious about finding the right colour, the right shape, the rightness of the gift for the right person?

This is an opportune situation to consider the meaning of gift-giving at Christmas time. This evening’s contemplation on the Visitation can help us do this.

“Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” As Mary enters into her cousin’s home, these words of welcome by Elizabeth remind her that she is gifted with God’s presence within her, even at this time of uncertainty. In fact, Elizabeth's words give voice to the silent, joyful leap of John the Baptist who, in her womb, recognizes the arrival of the long awaited Saviour. Her words then proclaim the truth that God has indeed come into their midst to dwell among his people, they who are barren and suffering, they who are lowly and in darkness. Do we not see this truth too in God’s continuing goodness in our lives, his faithful presence with us, his constant labour for our wellbeing, even when we sin?

If we live, move and have our being in this knowledge of God, it is because we, like Mary, have already been gifted with something that lives and moves and has its being deep within us, loving us immensely.

Isn’t this something God’s Love that we experience and believe in, and that propels us to share it through the gifts we give at Christmas? Indeed, genuine gift-giving is sharing freely what we had first received and now possess, Love.

Elizabeth’s words affirm Mary as the mother of her Lord. They are God’s loving and reassuring vocabulary of blessing that allow Mary to rest secure in her mission to bear Jesus to the world as God’s gift of Love manifest. This should remind us that we, who also walk in a topsy-turvy world, are indeed visited, accepted and accompanied by people God places in our lives to remind us that He-is-with-us in good and bad times. When we are visited by another, we are invited to do what Elizabeth does so well in the Visitation: to graciously welcome the gift of God coming through this person, and in doing this, we honour the God who is with her.

God nurtures Mary’s identity and mission through Elizabeth’s companionship. God nurtures us through the companionship of family and friends, even strangers and enemies, to reclaim our identity as his children and our mission to be his Son’s companions in sharing the Good News. When we allow God to nurture us, and when we also permit ourselves to nurture others in their joys and pains, we become Marys and Elizabeths, whose calling it is to help each other to see that the gift of God, O Emmanuel, is in our earthy midst.

The Visitation then invites us to appreciate gift-giving. Gift-giving is not the exchange of material goods; it is a sharing of God's love. Gift-giving finds its fullest expression when the gift given directs the gazes of both the giver and the recipient to the loving fidelity of the True Giver of all gifts in our lives, God.

Mary’s Magnificat closes this scene of the Visitation by celebrating God as the faithful and loving giver of all gifts that does great things not only in her life but throughout Jewish history. Her canticle invites us to do likewise. When we can see moments of radiance and splendour, God’s love, amidst the shadows and darkness of our lives today, we too can sing with gratitude a canticle to God that is uniquely our own.

If this is so, dear friend, then, isn’t there no better gift to give on Christmas morn than the Love of God that is already dwelling in your heart?





artwork: stained glass of the visitation at taize

It all begins with a “yes,” doesn’t it?

If we look at our lives, the stories of our dreams and the promises they bear and the narratives of who and what we want to become—these begin with a “yes.” Our “yes-es” are a response to invitations that present themselves, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways.

As much as these “yes-es” trumpet a future that lifts our gazes upward to the hopeful horizon of a new dawn, they also whisper of a past that is preparation. If we honestly look back, we would see that long before we could utter “yes, let it be,” we were in someway nurtured for this moment by the blessings and the struggles in our lives. As believers, we acknowledge a God who prepares us for those "yes" moments we assent to on our journeys of life and faith.

The story of the Annunciation we reflect on each Advent bears a similar refrain.

Mary’s “yes” was itself the culmination of many small “yes-es” she would have said in her friendship with God from the time she was conceived without sin. This, together with the upbringing she received from Anna and Joachim, her parents, and the many times she pondered on God in life and in faith, was God’s way of preparing her for the moment of the Annunciation.

Mary’s “yes” also gave voice to her free response, one enabled by her resolute trust and faith in a God who assured her that nothing is impossible with him. Greatly troubled as she was initially by the Angel Gabriel’s message that she was to conceive and bear the Son of God and call him Jesus, Gabriel’s announcement that God had gifted her elderly sterile cousin Elizabeth with child assured her that she could let go and let God lead.

Mary’s consent speaks of the true disciple, one who listens to God’s Word and acts on it. This act allows her to bear Jesus not only within her being but also to her community, lovingly depicted when she visited Elizabeth. Truly, she became the vessel through whom God’s love comes to dwell in our midst.

Mary’s pregnancy is therefore not only preparation for birth. It was a waiting that transforms: her “yes” allowed God to transfigure her from girl to disciple to prophet, who in bearing of the Word of God directs all she encountered—Joseph, Elizabeth, the embryonic John the Baptist—to the God who keeps his promise that he is truly God-with-us. And when Mary’s “yes” came to its fullness in the birth of Baby Jesus, her identity and mission were truly realized: she is Mother of God.

The story of Mary in the Annunciation, then, can remind us how beautiful and right it is for us too to respond to God with a simple yes. In doing so, we can claim God’s deepest desire of who and what we are, his children who are his Son’s companions.

I’d like to believe the Church also desires us to embrace in our Advent preparation what Mary heard long ago: God wishes to beget in your human life, my Son, and through you, to bring forth my Beloved Son to lovingly reclaim my people from sin and darkness.

If this is what we are being invited to ponder on as we move towards Christmas, are we not being challenged to consider our response if the Angel Gabriel said to each one of us, “do not be afraid for you too are God’s favoured child and God’s deepest desire is for his gift of Love to come to birth in your life this Christmas?”

Indeed, how would you respond, my friend?




artwork: stained glass of the annunciation by edward burne-jones