Dec. 23, 2007: 4th Sunday Advent (A)

If you ask young people of this generation when they should get married, most if not all would say when they know, beyond the shadow of doubt, they love someone. If you ask my mother's generation, especially those from Asian culture, the answer is quite different. For them, love is not such an important factor. My mother's generation looked at spouse's family background, job situation, and personality. It will probably shock the young people today when they hear that people in some cultures marry without barely getting know someone. They would say, "How can you marry someone you do not love?" They may be thinking, 'Such marriage would not last.' But strangely, it's the opposite. Divorce rate of my mother's generation was under 10%.

A different mindset was in place. One elderly man told me, "When my wife dies and goes to meet St. Peter at the pearly gates, St. Peter is going to declare her a saint for just putting up with me all these years." This would be a strange way of helping your spouse reach heaven. But isn't that the essence of marriage as instituted by Our Lord, to help your spouse reach heaven? That's why the Church calls the Sacrament of Matrimony a sacrament of service--directed at salvation of others.

In the Gospel today we meet a young couple who has been engaged but not yet married. Couples in those days did not go on dates to movie theaters, shopping malls, or restaurants. They were engaged without really knowing much about each other. Betrothal or Jewish engagement was a solemn affair where two families negotiated about finances and when the couple was to have their home-taking ceremony which would allow the couple to live under one roof. For a virgin, the period between betrothal and home-taking ceremony was often a year or more, at least to ensure that she had not been pregnant by another man. In the Gospel, Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but they did not have their home-taking ceremony yet. During this waiting period, Mary was found with a child.

Can you imagine what was going through Joseph's mind? Here a woman that he was engaged to, a woman he looked forward to sharing a lifelong companionship was not faithful during the waiting period. Mary must have explained about the Angel Gabriel and being overshadowed by the Holy Spririt. But could Joseph have enough faith in Mary to trust her and her story? This is where the true meaning of love emerges. It is not the kind of love where when the flame dies, you move on. Instead it is the kind of love that St. Paul talks about in First Corinthians. "Love is patient and kind...Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes." (1 Cor 13:4-7)

Can you imagine how our history would have turned out if St. Joseph said 'no' and quietly divorced Mary? There would be no fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah will come from the House of David, as we know that St. Joseph's ancestor is King David. In the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew, there is a long geneology of Jesus. We are told that there were 14 generations from Abraham to King David, 14 generations from King David to Babylonian Exile, and 14 generation from Babylonian Exile to Christ. What if just one of the person in this long geneology said 'no' to God's plan? We think our 'yes' to God is insignificant because we think we are small in comparison to God's grand plan. But Mother Teresa used to say that our 'yes' is only a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be that much less because our drop is missing.

Advent is not about us waiting for God to arrive. It is about God waiting for us to say 'yes' like St. Joseph did, to give Jesus the permission to arrive at the manger of our heart, to fulfill the unique mission that God has entrusted to each one of us. The only kind of manger that he is expecting us to prepare for his Son Jesus is a heart that "takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth', a heart that " is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes."