Gospel Commentary: Good Things Come in Humble Packages

By Fr. John De Celles
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of  12/18/03)

Today’s Gospel text presents us with three small packages, very humbly wrapped, in which very good things come.

The first package is the child in the womb of St. Elizabeth: St. John the Baptist — a child who even when he grew into a man wouldn't be much to look at in his very humble wrappings of animal skins, but of whom it would one day be said: "among those born of women none is greater than John."

The second package is a young woman from Nazareth: the Blessed Virgin Mary. Humble in manner and origin, one who called herself "the handmaid of the Lord," yet, as St. Elizabeth tells her in today’s text: "Blessed are you among women."

Both of these figures are recognized as being good in and of themselves. But the most important thing about both of them is not who they themselves are, but what they contain. In fact to the extent they are good in themselves, it is because they were specially prepared to be containers for the greatest gift the world has ever known. John is "the greatest man born of a woman" so that he could prepare the way for the one whose sandals he was unfit to unstrap. And Mary was "full of grace," and "blessed among women" so that she could be the Mother of the baby who was grace and blessing incarnate. A great gift comes in these small packages: both in a unique way contain God the Son, Jesus Christ.

But for both of these packages to contain Jesus they must first receive Him. And to receive Him they must be prepared to do the will of God. The Gospel tells us that St. John is so eager to get on with doing the will of God that he "leaped for joy" in his mother’s womb when he found himself in the presence of Jesus for the first time. And it tells us that Mary, after surrendering herself completely to the will of God and receiving the child Jesus into her heart and into her womb she immediately "set out and traveled to the hill country in haste" to visit Elizabeth, wasting no time to begin doing the will of God.

This same desire to fulfill the will of God also brings us to what — or "who" — might be called our third "package": the tiny Baby Jesus Himself. The Jesus we find in today’s text is the tiniest and most humble of packages, with a body smaller than the head of a pin, only a few days after His conception in Mary’s womb. Of course we don’t think of this body as a mere package, because this body doesn’t just contain God, or simply conform to God’s will: this body is God made flesh, and God’s will made personally present to the world.

Still, in some sense, we can think of His body as a kind of package. Because packages contain things so that they can be brought as gifts to others, and through the incarnation and birth of Christ, God gives Himself to us in a living, breathing and complete way.

In the coming days, let the packages under your Christmas tree remind you of St. John and the Blessed Mother. And remember that the greatest gift of all comes in the smallest most humble package — the life and love of God found in a baby wrapped in the womb of His Mother and in the preaching of St. John, and presented to the world on the first Christmas day.

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