The Silence of Mystery and Expectation

Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., preached on the Blessed Virgin Mary’s expectation during the first Advent when Christ dwelt in her womb. Here is the text of his homily:

The Virgin Mary, during the Season of Advent, sees what others have not seen. And she hears what others have not heard. She sees and hears the promise of the Archangel, Gabriel, who speaks to her the word of God, “Behold you are to conceive a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” Mary lives the mystery of faith, this time of advent, as a time of expectation, a time of waiting for the birth of her Son. But she also lives this time as a time of the presence of God, of a new presence of God, in the womb of Mary.

We have all had the occasion by a moment to sense more intensely the presence of Christ in the Eucharist during the celebration of the Mass, during Eucharistic adoration, or even in the Tabernacle, when we walk into a Church. There is Christ. He is there whether we sense or experience his presence. But precisely because this is the case, we are sometimes given to experience that he is present. Such experience is not the source of faith, but in some way it is its consequence.

But what about the experience of the blessed Virgin Mary during Advent? It is reasonable, like the Fathers of the Church, to see Mary as the original tabernacle. The word became flesh and dwells among us. This being hidden but present among us is first of all realized during the time of advent in the home of Nazareth, in the womb of Mary, under the protection of saint Joseph. Mary meditated upon all these things and kept them in her heart. We can reasonably speculate that she read scripture during this time, in silence, most likely the words of Isaiah, his prophesies, and found in them a sense of the meaning of what was happening to her.

St. Augustine says that she conceived the Word in her heart before she conceived the Word in her flesh. So that her maternity was accompanied by an intensification and growth in faith, in contemplation, in the intelligent perception of mystery. The second Vatican Council says that during the time of her pregnancy the heart of the Incarnate Word beat gently below the heart of Mary, her immaculate heart. Two immaculate hearts, beating silently and prayerfully in the night of this world.

And during this time, Mary grew in faith and in love, in expectation and in quite joy. Such should be also our advent, a time to accept the silence of mystery and expectation, of quiet penance and joy, waiting for the dawn of Christmas, and the light of Christ that is to illumine the world.