skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Mgr. Robert Barron FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C) Get in the army of Christ the Warrior-King and Mary the Warrior-Queen.
Friends, in the eleventh chapter of the book of Revelation, the visionary sees in the heavenly place the Ark of the Covenant—that box in which the remnants of the Ten Commandments were kept, that sign of Yahweh’s presence among his people. Immediately after, we hear of a queen who is about to give birth to a son. As a dragon waits to devour the child, the mother and child are swept away, and a great war breaks out between Michael and his angels and the enemy.
This sequence is not accidental. In today’s Gospel, we see Mary as the true Ark of the Covenant. She bore in her own womb the Word made flesh and the very presence of God. When she visits her cousin Elizabeth, the infant John the Baptist leapt in his mother’s womb, doing his own version of David’s dance before the Ark.
But Mary, as both the true Ark and the Queen Mother of Israel, is also a fighter. Israel frequently brought the Ark into battle with them, and the king of Israel and his queen mother were warrior figures. Mary is all about spiritual warfare against powers and principalities.
This terrible crisis we’re passing through in the Catholic Church has been a diabolical masterpiece. it undermines the work of the Church in practically every way. So what do we do? Get in the army of Christ the Warrior-King and Mary the Warrior-Queen. Enter into the great spiritual struggle. And fight to set things right—not with the puny weapons of the world but with the weapons of the Spirit.
