- 22
- Dec
- 2024

Fourth Sunday of Advent. Year C
Church of the Holy Trinity, Templeglantine and St. Joseph’s Church, Limerick.
Homily Notes of Bishop Brendan Leahy
With just a few days to go to Christmas, the Church today at Mass points us in the direction of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. It’s a reminder that Mary is with us in a special way during these days before Christmas. The scene presented to us today in the Gospel is the Visitation of Our Lady to Elizabeth. Remember Mary herself has just lived through an intense experience of the Angel Gabriel telling her she is the be the mother of Jesus. This surely must have caused a huge turmoil for Mary. And yet we see her going “in haste” to help her elderly relative, Elizabeth who was also expecting a child. What mattered for Mary was to love and respond to the need of her cousin. The journey would have been arduous. No buses in those days. It is estimated it would have taken at least a week to go from Nazareth to the house of Zechariah to visit Elizabeth.
It is a wonderful meeting between both these women. Mary who had already been filled with the Holy Spirit brings the joy of Jesus in her womb to Elizabeth who now is also filled with the Holy Spirit and feels the infant John the Baptist leap in her womb. For her part Elizabeth offers a wonderful greeting to Mary saying of all women she is the most blessed.
By presenting Mary who undertook this difficult journey to visit a relative needing a hand, the Church is reminding us of how best to prepare for Christmas. Charity, love for others, is always the way. But perhaps we’re feeling a little low or overwhelmed by things. Perhaps we’re going through a difficult time in our life. Perhaps there’s a turmoil unknown to others going on. Mary offers us a great lesson. She herself was facing all kinds of challenges, with a lot to be worked out. But instead of turning in on herself, she went out to love. The invitation comes to us too. Let’s look around us and see is there someone we can reach out to help. Perhaps there’s someone needing a friendly ‘phone call from us, an elderly lonely neighbour we can visit, a situation of need that we can do something about. Whatever it might be, Mary’s example prompts us to do our part, to go “in haste”, that is, don’t allow ourselves to languish in our problems or difficulties but rather, arise, like Mary, get up and take some step, no matter how small.
I’ve been reading lately a book by Carlo Acutis’ mother. He is the young teenager who at the age of 15, died of leukaemia 18 years ago. Pope Francis is going to canonise him next April in Rome. He was a wonderful young Italian teenager. We have photos of him in a T-shirt and sneakers. He was big into computers. But that’s not why he is being canonised. He became a saint because of his faith and many ways he showed love to those around him.
He had a great love from Mary. He believed we have much to learn from her about how to follow Jesus and live as a Christian in our world. He had heard that Pope John Paul II said that Mary’s womb was earth’s first “tabernacle”. We have tabernacles in churches that contain the Eucharist. But Mary was earth’s first tabernacle. She contained Jesus within her. Carlo Acutis realised we too have to become “living tabernacles”, bringing Jesus who lives in each of us through our baptism, to others by loving them with the love that God has poured into our hearts. The love that is within us can be a real gift for others. Through our love, which we can show in so many ways – lending a listening ear, offering a smile, sharing a sense of humour, doing a good deed. Imitating Mary in these coming days, we can lift hearts, dry tears, offer a helping hand.