18th December 2022

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Year A

Whoever welcomes Christ becomes part of a new fraternal communion nourished by mutual service according to the various gifts and charisms.

An ancient writer stated that “there is nothing in God’s actions that disconcert the human mind as much as the disproportion between the simplicity of the means used and the grandeur of the effects obtained “.
And it is true. A child is born for us, and, in faith we recognize that that child is the Redeemer of the world. Isaiah (Is 7: 10-14) announces a sign to King Ahaz, that of the virgin who will give birth to Emmanuel and Christian tradition will see in this text the promise of the future Messiah. The Gospel of Matthew (Mt 1,18-24) presents us with the figure of Joseph, a man described as “just” because he lives what he can to define religious justice that is, he recognizes, going through a great travail, the action of God in Mary, that is, the conception of Emmanuel in her by the work of the Holy Spirit. Joseph does not appropriate to himself a creature that God has reserved for his plan of salvation. Of course, he doesn’t become fully married to Mary, he is not the father of the child, yet he welcomes his mother and gives a name to her unborn child. In his letter to the Romans (Romans 1: 1-7), Paul helps us to understand the sign that was given to us in Jesus: weakness (seed of David according to the flesh) and power (constituted Son with power in the Spirit). Two realities, not opposed but connected to each other in a circular relationship. Weakness says solidarity and the love of the Son of God for man, to the point of becoming incarnate and dying on the cross; the power reveals instead the identity of the one who appeared in the weakness of a child and died powerless on the cross. To receive the sign of Emmanuel, of God with us, therefore means recognizing that our God is a God in solidarity; in the Incarnation the divine has fully assumed the human and in the resurrection the mortal has reached the eternal.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Santa Maria – Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey

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