Fourth Sunday of Advent – Luke 1:39-45

Grace, peace and mercy to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Women in our culture, and increasingly men also, are all too often celebrated for what they look like, instead of who they are. Our televisions, movies and magazines are filled with advertising that promotes diet pills and plans, fitness programmes and any other gimmick to get people to look, smell and feel better. The yardstick that is put forward as being the ideal is that which magazines and Hollywood want you to believe. The problem with all of this superficiality that celebrates the lives of the young and beautiful is that it keeps us from recognizing true beauty.

In today’s gospel reading we meet two women. Luke never considers it necessary to describe what they look like. He pays no attention to their sense of fashion. Nevertheless, he shows them for what they are: truly beautiful women.

Heavenly Father, sanctify us in the truth, your Word is truth. Amen.

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