KNOCK! KNOCK!

Wednesday in the 3rd Week of Advent
Lk 1:26-38

I asked a friend of mine, “Will you still remember me after ten years?” “But, of course, Father, I will!” he answered. “How about after twenty years?” I asked again. “Father, I will never ever forget you in ten years, in twenty years, or even in my entire lifetime,” he said.

“Knock! Knock!” I continued. “Who’s there?” my friend asked. “Liar! You said you will never ever forget me. How come you do not know me now?” I joked.

Of course, we heard this joke several times already. It sounds corny to you and me, but this is what the Lord is doing today in the Gospel. He is knocking on Mary’s womb: “Knock! Knock! May I come in?”

When the Lord knocked in Mary’s womb, Mary opened up to Him and let Him in. She did not doubt. Her question, “How can this be since I do not know man” was an inquiry to how she could welcome the Lord in her womb since she consecrated herself to Him in virginity. The angel Gabriel explained to her the unexplainable ways of God. And Mary opened her womb to God who knocked, saying, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.”

The Lord also knocks, not on our wombs – for not all of us have wombs and there can be only one womb to carry Him – but on our hearts. “Knock! Knock!” He says and waits for our response. If we open our hearts to Him and welcome Him in, we are blessed too. St. Augustine said of Mary, “Mary is blessed among women because she carried the Word in her heart before she conceived It in her womb.”

“Knock! Knock!” the Lord tells us. This is no joke. Will we answer, “Who’s there?”