Fourth Sunday of Advent / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
This weekend the Church celebrates the fourth and last Sunday of Advent 2025.
For its first reading, this weekend offers a reading from the first section of the Book of Isaiah. This reading refers to King Ahaz of the southern Hebrew kingdom of Judah.
Ahaz reigned in the last third of the eighth century before Christ. To be kind, he is not regarded as having been a remarkably successful king. Prompting Isaiah’s interest in Ahaz, or in any king, was not necessarily the monarch’s obvious power and renown, but rather the fact that the king first and foremost was, or should be, the servant of God.
Urged to be loyal and devoted, Ahaz was promised a sign of God’s favor. It was the birth of a son, whose mother was Ahaz’s young bride, a virgin.
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans provides the second reading. Introducing himself, Paul firmly states that he is an Apostle, called by the Lord to proclaim the Gospel. Above and beyond everything, he insisted, he was God’s servant.
For its last reading, the Church presents a section from the Gospel of
St. Matthew. Only two of the four Gospels (both synoptics) recount the birth of Jesus. Matthew is one of these Gospels. Luke is the other.
This weekend’s reading recalls the conception of Jesus. It says clearly, as Luke states that while Jesus had no earthly father, he was the son of Mary, a human being.
In this passage, Joseph is concerned, to say the least. He first, understandably, wonders if his betrothed has been unfaithful to him. How else could Mary have become pregnant? The angel Gabriel relieves Joseph’s mind by revealing that the unborn child is in fact the Son of God.
It is more than simply a chronicle of the conception and birth of Jesus, divine though these events may have been. The coming of the Messiah is a sign, perfect and penultimate, of God’s everlasting love for humanity. God never fails, is never absent from people.
Reflection
This weekend, the Church calls us to observe the last Sunday of Advent. The season of Advent is a carefully focused period preceding Christmas. In our culture, it is a time to surround ourselves with Christmas symbols.
A symbol frequently seen is the red bird. Why?
Many ancient Christmas symbols refer not to the Lord’s birth, but to the death of Christ. Holly and wreathes recall the crown of thorns. Red represents the Lord’s blood, shed during the crucifixion.
An old symbol is a bird, plentiful in the Holy Land at the time of Christ. Its feathers were dingy. It could not sing. It was seen as a pest, but not by Jesus. He did not force the little bird away. Sensing love and acceptance despite their ugliness and worthlessness, these birds surrounded Jesus, grateful, comfortable, secure.
Following Christ to Calvary, loyal to the end, they landed beneath the cross. A drop of the Lord’s Precious Blood fell upon one of the birds and the bird became the most beautiful of all birds, brilliantly red, touched by Christ.
At Christmas, Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world. Jesus died for us on Calvary in an act of perfect love. He asks in return for our honest, total love, nothing more, nothing less—a love uncompromisingly offered to everyone whom the Lord loves, which is every other human, however ugly.
If a person accepts Jesus and follows him, that person will be touched by Jesus and become beautiful before all in holiness and charity, a testament to the redeeming Savior, born of Mary in Betlehem, as beautiful as the red bird, touched and blessed by the Blood of Jesus on Calvary. †