Everything which is human and healthy is grounded in healthy, human reality.  Religion, too, must be solidly engaged in life or it becomes silly, superstitious and magical – unworthy of intelligent believers.  Even the Catholic festivals which stem from our liturgical piety must stand up to the healthy and human critique of the Gospel message.  Remember, “Culture incarnates the Gospel and the Gospel critiques the Culture.”

Zechariah, a Minor Prophet (meaning his biblical book is one of the shorter prophetic works), ministered for at least a brief period of only a couple of years (520-518 BC), although his prophetic career may have spanned as much as 30 years (until about 490 BC) to encourage the Jews of the recently-ended Babylonian Captivity to take advantage of the freedom and resources which the Persian Emperor Cyrus had returned to them by God’s grace.  Zechariah encouraged the descendants of the original Captives to return to and restore the Holy Land, no small task for them.  The freed captives were the descendants of those who had been conquered and forced to Mesopotamia (some by the Assyrians in 732, more in 598 and still more in 587/6 BC by the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar).  But these recently freed had been born and raised in Gentile territory, and were therefore relatively at home and comfortable in it.  They had resisted the re-migration in attitude if not always in action.  And, there were still some Jews back in Palestine whose ancestors had avoided the captivity and with whom there was some fairly intense animosity towards those returning from Babylon.  Zechariah advocated a genuine reconciliation, a rebuilding, and a religious renewal as a combined sign that God dwelt again in his Holy Land and among his re-united Chosen People.  This successful endeavor was a sign not merely to bolster Jewish morale; it was an invitation to the whole world, even to non-Jews.  It was a divinely ordained restoration of the Jerusalem Temple and God’s presence therein.  Centuries later, from that era, in a Christian perspective, this passage would be reinterpreted as a prophetic foreshadowing of the divine mystery Christians know as the Mystery of the Incarnation, i.e., the Word Made Flesh.

An alternative first lesson is found in the three passages from the Book of the  Revelation of John (Aka the Apocalypse of John) woven into one continuous text.  In this, the metaphorical images of the ark (as in “Ark of the Covenant”) in God’s temple in Heaven and that of a woman clothed with the sun are both appreciated as vessels or containers on or in which God’s real presence is located.  Both are visionary affirmations of the powerful reality and nearness of God.  The other “signs” that decorate the visionary scene point to God’s glory and power over against the reality of evil and sinfulness which God’s real presence challenges and always overcomes.  The dynamic and apocalyptic clatter of the dragon sweeping away the stars in the sky, the birth of the child, and God saving action for both newborn male child and mother, all demonstrate the vast superiority and victory of God’s will, power and grace over all powers of evil in the universe.  This was originally a Gospel message of hope (in apocalyptic terms) for 1^st Century Christians faced with immanent persecution and physical destruction.  There is hope in our 21^st Christian Century found in those verses, too, but without the apocalyptic attitude, i.e., without vindictive terror against the forces of evil.  Our world is as messy for us in our modern situations as it was for those late 1^st Century Christians in Asia Minor.  But, we also live in relative peace and security, so our interpretation of these visions must be somewhat different, intelligent in modern terms, and peaceful and confident in the blessings of God today.

The two gospel texts for today’s feast day are two parts of Luke’s Incarnation story, what Church pious tradition has labeled the Annunciation and the Visitation.  Luke includes details from the oral tradition by which to provide visual images of the Infancy Narrative.  These have been used by Christian artists through the ages so that believers might imagine the mysterious miracle of Christ among us.  Their more important point, though, is indeed theological: the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us!  The mysterious and invisible God has entered the physical universe on human terms and scale to save us from the very evils which blind us to the blessedness of Creation and of God’s universal and unfailing love.  God is indeed with us!  We can know God profoundly, not merely at a distance!

These passages are chosen for today’s liturgy to provide some visual imagery for the Incarnation Mystery while imagining the setting the Gospel message encountered  in Mezo-America in the very early 16^th Century.  While the Conquistadors had visited a forceful and painful destruction on the sophisticated native civilizations which they encountered, the Gospel message brought along by the missionary Friars competed against some rather harsh native religious beliefs, expressed by images of dragons and other celestial powers.  The native peoples had already perceived the reality of the divine mystery in their own terms.  The Christian Gospel provided new and indeed more profoundly loving images for their religious consideration.  These were embraced all the more once the story spread of the appearances of Mary Theotokos to (Saint) Juan Diego at Tepeyac beginning on December 9^th 1531.  Much controversy about the historicity of the apparitions and even about Juan Diego himself has arisen and endured over the centuries.  The controversy has tended to be among scholars trying to measure the historical details surrounding, or absent from, the reports of the apparitions.  But, the popular acceptance of the apparitions has been tremendously effective at conveying healthy and balanced aspects of the Christian Gospel, especially in making that Gospel deeply integral to the Meso-American social and religious cultures.  So, this feast day, with it’s religious images, art and customs, is a forceful witness to the powerful, real and effective presence of the loving and wise God proclaimed by the Gospel of Christ.  Since a huge portion of the 21^st Century Catholic population traces it’s religious cultural roots through the ongoing Spanish missionary efforts beginning in the late 15^th Century, this feast day rightly enjoys an important place on the liturgical calendar among the major feasts of the Church in the all the Americas and the Philippines.  A Special Note for 2010: since on the universal liturgical calendar the Sundays of Advent take liturgical precedence over all other festivals of the season, the date customarily assigned to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12^th) is shifted this year to Saturday (December 11^th) so as to not compete with an Advent Sunday.

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