Let us not Confuse Hope for Wishful Thinking

4th Sunday of Advent Homily by Calista Robledo

Note: this week’s post by MDiv student Calista Robledo is a reflection on the 4th Sunday of Advent Gospel reading - Luke 1:39-45

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Advent is a season of waiting. Outside of a liturgical context, Advent’s waiting appears daunting and occasionally dreary. Our embodied sense of waiting entails waiting for semesters to end, waiting for those few hours of sunlight, waiting to shop, waiting to see family, waiting to rest.

In this bleak early winter, our embodied liturgical new year reigns miserable surrounded by all that accompanies holiday cheer.

I imagine this is how the world felt before Jesus arrived…

The readings of the past four weeks all recognized the state of humanity before Jesus was born. We are sinful. We are weary. We are pleading for God’s love, and vigilant to God’s coming. In the waiting, everything is difficult and uncertain. While we may dread this time of year, I’d like for us to reflect on a woman who experienced this season long before us, our Mama Mary.

“The Visitation” by Gracie Morbitzer

Today’s Gospel reveals the visitation we all know and love. Mary visits Elizabeth. And Elizabeth exalts Mary as the Mother of God. For many of us, the Gospel of the Fourth Sunday of Advent is where the story pauses until Jesus’ birth.

But I can’t help but wonder, what happened between the visitation and the Birth of Jesus?

What did Mary and Joseph’s embodied advent look and feel like?
How far along was Mary when she visited Elizabeth?
How far along was Elizabeth?
How did Mary feel, seeing another pregnant woman honor her?
Did they compare trimester symptoms?
Do you think Elizabeth offered remedies, advice, wisdom?
After the visitation, I wonder if Mary developed strange cravings.
Was she fatigued?
How were her contractions?
On a scale of 1 to 10 what was her pain?
How did Joseph support her?
How did he hold her?

Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph experienced the first embodied advent for nine months.

Nine months.

And they didn’t know what we know now. They didn’t know what kind of person Jesus would become. They didn’t know how he would die. They didn’t know he would resurrect and give us all new life. They just waited for Jesus to be born, alert and aware of God’s plan, but uncertain of how it would unfold.

They embodied hope.

In what must’ve been a beyond stressful time for Mary and Joseph, as a young couple, as refugees, as the Earthly parents to the Son of God, they embodied hope through their perseverance and sacrifice, to fulfill God’s plan.

But let us not confuse hope for wishful thinking. Hope is a steady state that must be integral to our being in the world. I learned more about the role of hope at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Social Justice. This year’s theme was “Steadfast Hope in Precarious Times.”

Oh how we all needed this.

The keynote speeches highlighted hope as a superpower, a verb, and a way of being. Fr. Bryan Masingale spoke of the continuing precarious situations in the United States. The teach-in was about two weeks before the election, and now, in between the election and the inauguration, many are recalling the precariousness felt eight years ago. Like Mary and Joseph, the futures of many are uncertain for a variety of reasons, and the disposition of fear and doubt has itself upon the hearts of many. And beyond our own domestic issues, the Earth cries with suffering all over the world.

Indeed, do we live in precarious times.

I wonder if this is how the world felt before Jesus was born. Fr. Masingale also spoke of the significance of dreaming, grounded in hope. He explained that dreaming is what gets us through these precarious situations.

Dreaming is not delusion, nor denial. It is not wishful thinking, nor ignorance, but it is choosing to live and co-create a world we do not yet know, but we trust will come. Dreaming is eschatalogical, rooted in hope and fuelled by love of God and one another. It is sustained in community and requires courage, so so much courage.

Do you think Mary and Joseph dreamt during their nine months of advent? In the waiting of their own precarious situation, I imagine them dreaming of their life together and with Jesus. Just as a couple, young and in love, dreams of their future together.

The Holy Family, by Brother Mickey McGrath

They embody hope.

Every step on their journey to Bethlehem embodied hope.
Every moment of rest they took, embodied hope.
Every push during labor and
every squeeze of Joseph’s hand,
embodied hope in their waiting.

How do we embody hope in the waiting?

Whether we are waiting for Christmas, waiting to turn in a paper, or waiting to hug a loved one, may the embodied hope of Mary and Joseph serve as an example of hopeful waiting beyond advent, and into every season of waiting we encounter.

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AUTHOR

Calista Robledo (she/her/hers) is a Chicana writer, dancer, liturgist, and student at Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry. Calista is working on her Masters in Divinity Degree and brings the arts into her ministry and ministry into her art. Calista grew up in South Texas and is a lover of liturgy, sunsets, and Tex-Mex food. Subscribe to her own Substack newsletter Theo-Poet Laureate.