ADVENT 4, 19 December 2021

Today in our service with the lighting of the Advent Candles, we celebrate the mother of Jesus without whom …..

The meeting of Mary and her much older cousin Elizabeth appears only in St. Luke’s gospel.

Luke, the “beloved physician” and companion of Paul begins his gospel with a detailed narrative of the infancy of Jesus and also covers the announcement of and birth of his cousin John the Baptist.

There is a tenderness and natural empathy in Luke’s writings.

The focus on the infancy narrative leads us to think deeply about our debt to Jesus’s mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It’s generally thought the Gospel was written in the First Century around 80 AD. So 80 years after the meeting the meeting of the two cousins.

For Luke to know of this meeting and Elizabeth feeling the kicking of her baby John the Baptist, her unborn baby acknowledging the one that he will serve, Elizabeth must have told Mary and the two of them will have shared this experience such that it has become woven into the drama of the God incarnate.

This is all very possible- in our own families, some of us will know of family experiences in December 1941 (just after the attack on Pearl Harbour)

What then can we say about Mary?

We can say many things but the two things I think that will be most helpful to us today are:

1.      Trust

2.      Giving thanks (as set out in the words of the Magnificat).

Mary lived in uncertain times. Herod the Great was on the throne – a man capable of great violence (witness the massacre of the Innocents) backed up by the might of Rome.

We have no idea what churned through the mind of young Mary during the day or as she lay in bed at night awaiting sleep. If, as I am sure we do, find ourselves concerned about daily events, she will have had much to worry about too.

Her faith in God inspires us today.

Just as she inspired those who have gone before us:

Let me share one such example

In April 1943, having dined with Churchill and Eden, Field Marshall Wavell visited his wife’s godson at Northwick Park in Gloucestershire with its remarkable collection of paintings by Holbein, Cuyp, Reynolds and Leonardo da Vinci amongst others.

The war in the Far East was not going well.

The Field Marshall was particularly taken by a painting in the house of “The Madonna of the Cherries”

You may know his anthology of poems “Other Men’s Flowers.” published a few years later

The last poem is one of his own.

With self-deprecation he wrote by way of introduction:

At the end of my garden of other men’s flowers, outside the gate I have put this little wayside dandelion of my own. It has no business here, even outside the garden, but the owner of the lady for whom it was written is anxious for it to be included. She is a beautiful lady, designed though not actually painted by Leonardo da Vinci, and I have loved her ever since I saw her.

Wavell was fighting different forces to us today. He prayed for resilience, persistence, courage, comfort.

His words reflect his own experiences but also I think you may agree with me when I read the sonnet, mirror those of Mary.

This is what he wrote:

Dear Lady of the cherries, cool, serene,

Untroubled by the follies, strife and fears,

Clad in soft reds and blues and mantle green

Your memory has been with me all these years.

Long years of battle, bitterness and waste,

Dry years of sun and dust and eastern skies,

Hard years of ceaseless struggle, endless haste,

Fighting ‘gainst greed for power hate and lies.

Your red-gold hair, your slowly smiling face

For pride in your dear son, your king of kings,

Fruits of the kindly earth, and truth and grace,

Colour and light, and all warm lovely things –

For all that lovelieness, that warmth, that light,

Blessed Madonna, I go back to fight.

In the coming weeks, we pray that we receive the gifts of trust, courage, persistence,

the gift to encourage others

And that we remember the give thanks to God.

Let me finish with St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Fr. Peter Wolton

Advent 4

Sunday 19 December 2021