The Angelus - a better beginning

Today, is the 4th Sunday of Advent where Mary figures prominently. Why is Mary so prominent this Sunday? The encounter between Our Lady and Arch-Angel Gabriel is recalled in The Rosary as it is the First Joyful mystery of the Annunciation, but it is also something traditional Catholic cultures call to mind when they say The Angelus at 12noon in the day and at 6pm in the evening. Why not contemplate the The Angelus (French: L'Angélus), an oil painting by French painter Jean-François Millet, completed between 1857 and 1859?

Here is a mystery and an icon that reveals to us the beauty and the chivalry of grace that flows between a pure spirit - Gabriel - and a pure embodied spirit -Mary! It echoes that first encounter between an angel and a woman but one that did not go so well, namely , when the fallen angel Lucifer met the Original woman, Eve and the Original man, Adam. Yet Adam and Eve because they died friends of God, and not enemies, they became saints when Our Lord died on the cross for our sins, sins that go back to Adam and Eve, but on his Descent among the dead, Our Lord Jesus lifted Adam and Eve out of Hades and up to heaven; hence why 24th December was a feast day in the Old Calendar when Catholics celebrated the Feast of St Adam and St Eve! But today we are reminded that it is Our Lady who is the new Eve because her Son is the New Adam and the God-Man and by her fiat, her obedience, we have all entered a new and better beginning than that of Adam and Eve’s!

Without the fiat, or Yes, of Our Lady there would have been no Christmas and so the world and winter would have been a dark place and a long, cold, dark season; indeed history would have had no heavenly and maternal guide down through the ages. A maternal and womanly inspiration that inspired chivalry between men and women; music, symphonies and chant; the colours, paintings and designs of buildings, be they cathedrals, monasteries, grottos and shrines; nor would there have been any stories of when children met Our Lady to bring about repentance, mercy and hope through miracles, healings and holy wells that litter our countries and their countrysides!

Now Advent is also a season where we find that the end of history matters. Indeed that salvation comes through history as it is built on the promises of God as revealed by the prophets promises that point to the truth that something good this way comes. The good that comes is Jesus our Saviour and our Liberator.

The history of salvation, that Jesus fully reveals and accomplishes, has to be appropriated in our own lives, in our own history and must thus direct our own personal stories as to who we are, where we come from and where we are going. Thus, the 1st Sunday of Advent called us to stay awake and keep watch for God’s grace and not fall asleep and become a prey to our ultimate predator, Satan; the 2nd Sunday called us to a fundamental choice of either following the banner of victory that is Jesus our Saviour or follower the banner of Satan; and the 3rd Sunday called us out of that deep sleep - that is the state of a lukewarm or tepid soul that succumbs to the false joys of this world and so enters an everlasting winter – into the state of being a fired up soul that enjoys the new spring of eternal youth. In other words, we can either grow old in sin or grow young in grace!

The Old Testament points to the coming of God’s Son who will be the Son of David as we find in our first reading from 2 Samuel the great promise and covenant God made with David:

And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins,
and I will make his kingdom firm.
I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

Well, in her we see how we can grow young in grace. In the words of Damian Lundy’s famous hymn ‘Sing of a girl in the ripening wheat’ we find words that call us to grow young in grace:

Sing of a girl who will never grow old,
joy in her eyes and gold in her hair.

The role of Mary as the mother of the Messiah and Queen is found in the Old Testament all the way back to Genesis as promised by God himself when God tells the serpent who has tempted the woman: "I will make you enemies of each other; you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel" (Gen 3:15). Mary is to be the new Eve and our new Queen, the highest honour of our race. Yet, it is true that though her role in the birth of Jesus is prominent,  her role in his ministry is in the background. However, we find these words of St Louis de Montfort that speak of this contrast:

"Mary scarcely appeared in the first coming of Christ... But in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary must be known and openly revealed by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus may be known, loved and served through her.”

St Louis de Montfort was a priest and confessor in the years 1673-1716 and wrote the classic work on Mary ‘True Devotion to Mary’ where he has an number of important things to say to us today. As we went through Advent of 2023 we found that both the world and the Church were coming into a winter. Yet, it is our deepest hope that the Church will eventually come into her spring for St Louis goes on to say this:

"....towards the end of the world, ....Almighty God and His holy Mother are to raise up saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs."

"These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light, strengthened by her spirit, supported by her arms, sheltered under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other. With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries, sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin... "

We live in times where there is Christ and the anti-Christ, the Church and the anti-church, the follower and the compromiser both in the world and yes even in the Church, among the hierarchy and among the clergy, and even in our parishes. But it is here that I implore you to cling to Our Lady who on this 4th Sunday of Advent calls us into a child-like simplicity of entrusting our lives, our homes, our families and our hearts to her maternal protection and grace for she knows how to help us to become true adopted sons and daughters of God the Father as only the Mother of the Son can. Our hearts must enter Our Lady’s immaculate heart so that we maybe transfigured by the Sacred heart of Jesus. If we enter their hearts we will become young at heart and in soul and be true apostles of the Gospel. St Louis de Montfort says the following about such apostles:

"They will be like thunderclouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin; they will storm against the world; they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's word all those against whom they are sent by Almighty God."

"They will be true apostles of the latter times to whom the Lord of Hosts will give eloquence and strength to work wonders and carry off glorious spoils from His enemies. They will sleep without gold or silver and, more important still, without concern in the midst of other priests, ecclesiastics and clerics... Wherever they preach, they will leave behind them nothing but the gold of love, which is the fulfilment of the whole law."

As you can see there is nothing PC about this way of Life. But St Louis calls us to five things this final Advent Sunday:

1.  a deep and total Faith in Jesus and his Sacraments,

2.  love of scripture,

3.  praying the rosary,

4.  total conversion to Christ in monthly confession

5.  and fasting. 

Let his final words sink into our souls in these Advent times in which we now find ourselves:

"They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the bloodstained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the Crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart.”