Homily

Today is the last Sunday of Advent, and this year it falls just on the threshold of Christmas. Advent reminded us that we are at the eve: someone is coming and we are waiting for the day of the full manifestation of God. He returns among human beings. The disciples of the Lord are not lost in uncertainty; they do not wander without directions; they do not live just for the day, as would those who follow the rule of their own satisfaction and interest. Our life does not end with us! In Advent, particularly in this Advent, which leads us into the new decade, at the end of the jubilee year, we find again the sense of expectation and of joy, because our life includes someone who comes to visit us. Advent liberates us from the pessimism that forces us to only look backwards; it liberates us from the rough realism of hopeless human beings. Someone is coming. Someone for whom it is worth changing and preparing. Someone who does not leave us alone, who shows us the compassion of God and his choice of loving men and women and their weakness. As we heard last Sunday: rejoice, do not let your arms fall! Do not complain for what you do not have! Do not resign because hope seems impossible! The Lord is coming; he pierces the heavens and comes down. The Lord chooses the weakness of a woman and manifests himself in the weakness of a child. The Lord is the only one who changes the hearts of people and the world because he makes new what it is old and generates a new life.
Mary has come here. But she still has a little further to come, and this last part is perhaps harder and more arduous than crossing the heavens was. It is the distance that she still has to cross to reach and touch our hearts. Will we let her climb over the mountains of indifference and selfishness that rise up inside us? Will we let her cross over the chasms of hatred and enmity that we have dug in our souls? Will we open a path for her through the poisonous and bitter weeds that make our hearts unfeeling, our thoughts wicked, and our behaviour violent? This basilica, which is a sign of Mary, has in its womb the Child--it has the Gospel. Will we be able to hear her greeting? Will we be able to listen to the Gospel that is proclaimed to us? Blessed are we if we can welcome Mary’s greeting when she comes to visit us. The same thing that happened to Elizabeth will happen to us, “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’” We repeat these words every time we recite the Hail Mary. But we can give them their true meaning today if we let that greeting touch our hearts and let Mary and her tender way of waiting for Jesus move us.
She is truly “blessed” among us all, because she “believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” This first beatitude that we read about in the Gospel is the reason for our faith and the source of our joy, even if it sometimes leads to sacrifice. This is how Mary prepared herself for Christmas: first she welcomed the words of the angel. We could say, she listened to the Gospel. A new life began for Mary when she listened. She decided to listen completely to what the angel told her, even at the price of being misunderstood, criticized, or possibly rejected by Joseph. And having learned from the angel that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant, she left Nazareth to go help her, undertaking a long journey. She did not stay at home to prepare for Christmas; she went to see an elderly woman who needed help. That is how to make space for the Lord – a young woman visits an elderly woman. Our hearts will grow if we stop thinking about ourselves all the time. Our thoughts will become more tender if we draw near to those who need help; our behaviour will become sweeter if we stand beside the poor, the weak, the sick and if we learn how to love them. Love is a great school for life. This is how Mary prepared herself for Christmas, by listening to the Gospel, watching over it, and putting it into practice. And today she is coming among us to tell us and even more to involve us in her waiting for her Son.
Tomorrow this house will not close its doors. It will be a space for those, who do not have one. It will be a home for many people, who, like the Lord Jesus, do not have a place; therefore, they must wander outdoors, away from home, while experiencing the bitterness of rejection and solitude. This house will rejoice as Mary did and will sing with her the words, “My soul does magnify the Lord, because he looked at the humility of His servant, because God has lifted up the lowly and has filled the hungry with good things.” This will be a Christmas of compassion and friendship, a small anticipation of the Advent that we are waiting for, when people will come from east and west and will sit at table in the Kingdom of God. We will be blessed if we believe in the fulfilment of the words of the Lord. We will rejoice when we will meet and accept the mother, who continues to generate among men and women the Lord of life.