Homily for December 21, 2019

Twenty-three years ago, Liam Doyle came into the world with an incomplete heart – he was born without one of the four chambers needed for the muscle to pump blood through his little body. Twice before the age of two, little Liam underwent open-heart surgery to rebuild his heart. It was a terrifying ordeal for his parents, Brian and Mary. But Brian Doyle writes in his book, Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies, that the family’s traumatic experience was also a rare occasion of grace.

He said that the first operation was terrifying, but it happened so fast and was so necessary and so soon after his birth that the family – tired and frightened – simply staggered from hour to hour.

By the time of the second operation, Liam was two years old and had developed quite a personality. This time, in even greater fear of losing Liam, Brian went into a deep and dark place of fear. However, his wife’s hand touched him like a hawk and ripped him away from that dark place. He said her touch was a moment of pure grace that truly saved his soul.

In today’s Gospel reading, we witness such a moment of grace within the family of Mary and Elizabeth: love that enabled one cousin to put aside her own plight to help the other cousin; compassion that allowed the older woman to offer comfort and joy to the younger woman in her anguish.

Elizabeth mirrors family at its best. As husbands and wives, as mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, God has given us one another to create a safe welcoming place called family. And for some, family is found outside these relationships. It is in these relationships – all called family – that we experience the saving grace of God. +