Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

Image of Beartooth Mountain, MT

 Lectionary: 195

"So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit
to take away my disgrace before others."

Saint Elizabeth, despite her old age, expressed her relief and joy upon discovering that she was pregnant. And then, if she believed her mute husband's explanation of how that came to be, discovered God's guiding hand in the long story of her life.

Where she felt disgraced for her barrenness she found relief; where she had felt overlooked and forgotten by the Lord, she realized his regard had been upon her since childhood. 

In fact, she found herself in very good company with Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and the unnamed mother of Samson. A daughter of Jerusalem, she also remembered the prophets who sometimes described that holy city as a barren woman and deserted wife:

Raise a glad cry, you barren one who never bore a child,

break forth in jubilant song, you who have never been in labor,

For more numerous are the children of the deserted wife

than the children of her who has a husband,

says the LORD.

Enlarge the space for your tent,

spread out your tent cloths unsparingly;

lengthen your ropes and make firm your pegs.

For you shall spread abroad to the right and left;

your descendants shall dispossess the nations

and shall people the deserted cities.

Do not fear, you shall not be put to shame;

do not be discouraged, you shall not be disgraced.

For the shame of your youth you shall forget,

the reproach of your widowhood no longer remember. Isaiah 54:1-4

We can take a valuable lesson from her happiness. We find our history in the scriptures, including God's saving deeds and glorious works. And we discover our sins also, as we read, "We have sinned; we and our fathers have sinned. In doing so, we come to know God's merciful forgiveness. 

Like Elizabeth, we do well to search the scriptures for our personal identity before we turn and ask those around us what they think of us. Teenagers are notorious for looking for themselves among the signals they give one another, despite the fact that their peers may trash them. All of us found ourselves in the mirror of our parents, but some of us must finally refuse the abusive images and turn, like Saint Francis, to our heavenly father. "Who one is before God, is who one is!" said the Saint. "Neither more nor less!!" 

Because we are God's people, each one's story must be anchored in that blessed history; the believer's personal identity belongs within our common identity. We are loved sinners. 

During these closing days of Advent, many Catholics turn to the Sacrament of Penance to rediscover their true self in God's presence. Profoundly aware of our sins, and of the sinful world around us, we learn again that the Lord has known us all along, and more deeply than we knew ourselves. What we might find despicable in ourselves, the Lord understands. He is patient, and forgives. He never regretted for a moment our creation.

With that assurance we can say with Elizabeth, ""So has the Lord done for me; he has seen fit to take away my disgrace."