The Expectation

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Dec 18, 2024

In Spain this date—December 18, one week before Christmas—is known as the Expectation of the Virgin Mary. It is not a feast day, but the tradition offers a lovely opportunity to reflect on Our Lady’s humanity.

Since it seems to be a more or less universal phenomenon among women in the last stages of pregnancy, can we assume that Mary experienced what we now call the nesting instinct? I can easily imagine St. Joseph coming home to find his young wife perched precariously on a stool, trying to sweep away a cobweb in the corner of a ceiling. I can picture him telling her to please get down and let him finish the job. He would be nervous about his wife’s condition, no doubt, as every husband is as the due date approaches. Could he trust her sense of balance, now that she was heavy with child? Would he worry that she was tiring herself out, when she should be resting to prepare for the baby’s birth?

For me at least, the “Expectation” evokes strong feelings that every parent knows: the anticipation, the excitement, the anxiety, the impatience that have been building for nine months, coming to a crescendo in the final days before the birth. It’s easy, isn’t it, to remember those emotions, and almost to feel them again ourselves when we see a young couple together and know that their baby is coming any day now.

But whereas we can feel the excitement along with the couples we know, the Expectation of the Virgin Mary is different. Not just her blood relatives, but the whole Christian world—everyone who knows her as Mother—shares in the excitement. All of Advent is a season of waiting, but now in this final week the waiting is tinged with excitement, anticipation, yes even impatience. Come, Lord Jesus!