Good News

Homily for Saturday, December 21

In Charles Dickens’ novel Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, one of the characters makes the observation that “Nothing travels so fast as ill news.” In our times, this statement is usually reduced to four words: “Bad news travels fast.” That is probably more true of our own times than it has been at any time in our history. With our 24/7 news cycle, the news is no longer reduced to a 15 minute segment in the evening. One can listen to the news all day long.

Since communication can travel from person to person who are separated by continents and oceans almost instantaneously, we may have to slow down and think about both of our readings today to appreciate the words being shared.

In the first reading, the beloved sees her lover coming to greet her, springing and leaping like a gazelle or a stag. He is happy, delighted, playful. He is bringing good news! “Arise my beloved,” he says, “winter is over and flowers appear on the earth.” Ironically, in our geographical location, today is the first day of winter. Nonetheless, there is an urgency to the message in this poem from the “Song of Songs.” This urgent, good news, is that there is new life to behold; there is beauty and love to experience. Communicating all of this cannot wait.

We can say the same thing about the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth. There is an urgency to her purpose; there is new life to share. She is also bringing good news! We can even imagine her saying to herself, “I cannot wait to share this good news with Elizabeth and to share in her good news!”

That there is urgency and haste in both lover and Mary cannot be reduced to the idiom about news traveling fast. What can be said, however, is this: the Word needed to travel fast. It still does. There is no more important, urgent, hopeful good news than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our salvation is on the way, and we should be bursting at the seams to share it.