Advent Readings for December 12th.

Today, as we reflect on the readings, we are invited to examine Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Revelation 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10

¹⁹ Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple;

12 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ² She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. ³ Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. ⁴ His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. ⁵ And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; ⁶ and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God,

¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,

“Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God.

Luke 1:39-47

³⁹ In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰ where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

⁴⁶ And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

⁴⁷     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,