The Fourth Sunday of Advent gives us an opportunity to reflect on the silence of Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Mary is the Mother who stands by her Son, that woman who Saint Paul describes when he says, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.” Again, in the total giving of her life, he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.”

The Gospel tells us “Mary traveled in haste.” She is anxious to enter her family’s home, into the hearth of Zechariah and Elizabeth in the same way she enters each of ours hearts and helps us wait for Jesus.

Mary is the model of all motherhood and joins families together. She is the Undoer of Knots, who resolves the small human conflicts that keep families apart; showing us by her own example how we can gain eternal life for our spouses, our children and ourselves. If your family is in conflict approach her here, kneel here and pray for your family.

Mary will help you find mercy and forgiveness.  Elizabeth responds to Mary’s help as if she was speaking to us, when she says, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”

Bring Mary into your homes; enshrine her in the warmth of your hearth. She will help you wait for the coming of Jesus there and help you untie the knots in your life. Can you hear her voice? Of course you can’t because it is in imitation of her silence that you hear the cry of a child waiting for you!