First Reading: Micah 5:2-5a
Father Caesarius, osb
Psalm 80: 1ab+2, 14-15, 17-18, (R.3)
Second Reading: Hebrews 10:5-10
Gospel: Luke 1:39-45
“God of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.” This
refrain from Psalm 80, which we sung in
response to the Word of God, is a beautiful
verse we can repeat throughout this week
in preparation for Christmas.
God of hosts, bring us back. But bring us
back to what? In an age overshadowed by
darkness and scandals we ask the Lord to
bring us back to our first love, to union
with his will. How often do “we connect,
even unconsciously, the will of God with
everything unpleasant, painful, everything
that puts us to the test, that requires
renunciation and sacrifice, in short,
everything that can be seen as curbing our
personal freedom and development”?1 And
so we ask God to bring us back, back to the
experience of being overshadowed by the
Holy Spirit who dwells in our hearts and
makes known to us the Father’s will. For
as Cardinal Cantalemessa said in one of his
Advent meditations this year “when the
Spirit comes to us, – in Baptism and then
in all the other means of sanctification, –
he begins by showing us a different face of
God, the face revealed to us by Jesus in the
Gospel. He has us discover God as an ally
of our joy, as the one who, for our sake
“did not spare his own Son (Rom 8:32)”2
“God of hosts, bring us back.” We ask to
be brought back to that wonder and
amazement concerning the most sublime
truths of our faith, including that of being
children of God, the Creator of the
universe, the Almighty One, the Eternal
One, the giver of life…Let your face shine
1
(Cardinal Cantalamessa, Second Advent
Meditation, 10 December 2021).
2
Ibid.
December 19, 2021
on us and we shall be saved.” We ask God
to bring us back to a Eucharistic
amazement, to stand in awe before the
Most Holy Sacrament in which God offers
us the Body and Blood of His Son.
“God of hosts, bring us back; let your face
shine on us and we shall be saved.” How
deeply these words echoed in the heart of
our Blessed Mother…that immediately
after she conceived Jesus she set out and
went with haste to serve her cousin
Elizabeth. In her womb, Mary carried
within her the face of God. Which is why,
when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the
child in her womb leapt for joy. While yet
in the darkness of the womb, John the
Baptist tasted the joy of salvation. And we
too can taste the joy of salvation if we
allow the Holy Spirit to move our hearts
and our minds from the darkness of faith to
the light of unbelief. Yes…you heard that
right….tasting the joy of salvation rests
upon this grace-filled movement guided by
the Holy Spirit, the movement from the
darkness of faith to the light of unbelief.
Let me explain. Our experience of faith
can be very much like a babe’s experience
of being in the darkness of the womb. A
babe can’t see outside of the womb; he
relies on his mother, on her eyes and her
movements. Similarly with faith, if we try
to look and understand what is around us
with our own eyes, with our own self-
sufficiency, believing faith is merely a
subjective response to the woes of the
world and not a gift we have received from
on High, then, all we will see is darkness.
But if we learn to see and understand what
is around us through the eyes of Another,
we move from the darkness of faith to the
light of unbelief. And by unbelief, I mean a
very special type of unbelief: that of those
who believe without being able to grasp
what they believe because it is so immense
and impossible from a human point of
view. I am speaking of that type of
unbelief which – because of the immensity
of what we believe – manifests itself
through amazement, the amazement of
looking beyond our own self-sufficiency
and observing the world through the eyes
of Another, namely the eyes of God. We
need to rediscover this light of unbelief,
this look of amazement. And we can.
Brothers and Sisters, Jesus was born in
Bethlehem, a town on the periphery, and
through the Holy Spirit Jesus is born in the
peripheries of our heart, our soul, our
feelings, perhaps feelings of which we are
ashamed; but the Holy Spirit is there to
help us move forward3 from faith to
amazement. With the joy of the Holy Spirit
burning in our hearts, let us prepare for
Christmas, giving voice to the Spirits’ cry,
by praying the words of Psalm 80: “God of
hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on
us and we shall be saved.”

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting she

was filled with the Holy Spirit and
exclaimed with a loud cry: “And why has
this happened to me, that the mother of my
Lord comes to me.” Elizabeth is a woman
who allowed the Holy Spirit to move her
heart and mind from the darkness of faith
to the light of unbelief. With a humble
acceptance of the gift of the Holy Spirit,
poured into her from on High, Elizabeth
learned to see reality through the eyes of
God. And each us can make this cry our
own for – in Baptism, and then in all the
other means of sanctification – we too have
been filled with the Holy Spirit. As we
celebrate the Eucharist how can we not cry
out in amazement: “who am I that my Lord
comes to me, that my God brings me back,
shines his face upon me that I may be
saved.”

3
(cf. Pope Francis, General Audience, 17
November 2021)