(Fourth Sunday in Advent) There is a book titled BARREN COUPLES AND BROKEN HEARTS. It is about married couples who desperately want to have children but, for one reason or another, are unable. It is one of life's ironies, isn't it? Some couples have unexpected and even unwanted pregnancies. Other couples who are totally unfit to be parents also have no difficulty breeding. Then there are those couples with so much love to give but who are denied the opportunity.

Of course, children are a challenge. I read a true story about a family who lived on the forty-second floor of a high-rise building on the lakefront in Chicago. Each morning the two-year-old son kissed his father good-bye as his father stepped into the elevator, which was located just outside the door to their apartment. Each night the boy waited to jump into his father's arms as he stepped back off the same elevator.

It was only later, after the boy had learned to express himself clearly, that the family learned that for many months the little boy had thought his dad spent his entire day, every day, on the elevator. Life is quite interesting from a child's perspective.

Not everyone in our society wants to be a parent. That's okay. No one should ever be made to feel unworthy because they make this choice. But there are some couples who want desperately to have children. Often these are some of the best people in the world. They are able both financially and emotionally to be the very best of parents, but nature does not cooperate. Some will choose adoption. Others will choose to focus on each other and accept their childless state.

Elizabeth and Zechariah fit in this latter category. They were a devoted couple ” devoted to God and to one another. They had given up long ago on having a son or a daughter. They had reached the age where such a thing was unrealistic. They had learned to cope with it. God knew best, they believed. Then one day the most extraordinary thing occurred. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and announced that he and Elizabeth would bear a son. This in itself was a tremendous shock, but the angel said something even more extraordinary: their child was to be the long-awaited messenger who would announce the coming of the Messiah. Zechariah was struck speechless. In his old age he was to father a son who would be the Lord's messenger. Can you imagine how difficult it was for Zechariah to communicate all this to Elizabeth ” especially since he still could not speak? She was to become a mother ” a very mature mother. They would have a son and he would grow up to be a very special man. That night they surely clung to one another in joy and disbelief.

Elizabeth hid herself away when she discovered she was pregnant. Perhaps she was slightly embarrassed. Certainly she was in no hurry to draw attention to her condition. All her friends were grandmothers and she was preparing to have her first child. It was all too much.

Elizabeth did not know that the same angel who appeared to her had also appeared to a relative of hers ” a much younger woman betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph. Elizabeth made that discovery when one day Mary appeared at her door. And Luke tells us something very special about that encounter. He says, "the babe leaped in [Elizabeth's] womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed [to Mary], Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb...." Elizabeth announced the coming of Christ. What a beautiful story about some very beautiful people.

PERHAPS WE SHOULD NOTE, FIRST OF ALL, THE JOY THAT THESE TWO WOMEN FELT AT THE NEWS OF THEIR PREGNANCY. One was as yet unwed, the other in her mature years. Neither would have chosen the timing but both were thrilled at the event. Wouldn't it be great if all children could be greeted with such enthusiasm? Unfortunately we know better.

One of the great scandals of our society is the prevalence of child abuse ” over 2.7 million cases in America last year alone. One child dies every 4 hours from abuse. The cost to society is staggering. Two of every three prisoners convicted of first-degree murder report childhoods of physical abuse. Eighty percent of all prostitutes report histories of sexual abuse.

If you are the product of a loving and happy home, give God thanks every day of your life. You may have already received the richest blessing life can bestow. And if you have children of your own, make these years count.

Sam Levenson tells a wonderful story about the birth of his first child. The first night home the baby would not stop crying. His wife frantically flipped through the pages of Dr. Spock to find out why babies cry and what to do about it. Since Spock's book is rather long, the baby cried a long time. Grandma was in the house, but since she had not read the books on child rearing, she was not consulted. The baby continued to cry. Finally, Grandma could be silent no longer. "Put down the book," she told her children, "and pick up the baby."

Good advice. Put down the book and pick up the baby. Spend time with your children. Particularly at Christmastime. We have the mistaken notion that good parents give their children lots of things. Wrong.

In a survey done of fifteen thousand schoolchildren the question was asked, "What do you think makes a happy family?" When the kids answered, they didn't list a big house, fancy cars, or new video games as the source of happiness. The most frequently given answer was "doing things together." Notice the joy with which these women greeted the news of their pregnancy.

NOTICE, IN THE SECOND PLACE, HOW IMPORTANT THEIR FAITH WAS TO THEM. Elizabeth and Mary both were selected to give birth to these very special babies because of their faith in God. They did not have affluent homes or great educational advantages. All they had was simple faith. And that's important. Happy families don't just happen. They are part of a package.

Some of you young people may complain that your parents expect too much from you. They have too many rules and regulations. Maybe your parents are a little old fashioned, a little behind the times. Let me clue you in ” it is these same characteristics that make you so fortunate. If they were any other way, they wouldn't put your happiness before their own, they wouldn't make sacrifices in your behalf, they wouldn't have surrounded you with love ever since you first came into the world. Because they are people of strong values, you can rest assured that they will always be there for you regardless of what may come. It's all part of a package. It has to do with a commitment that they have made ” to God, to one another, and to you. The family that prays together generally does stay together ” as trite as that may sound. Faith was important to Elizabeth and Mary. They trusted God.

NOTICE, HOWEVER, THAT ELIZABETH AND MARY'S FAITH DID NOT PROTECT THEM FROM PAIN. The story of these two Mothers-to-be does not have a happy ending. Both sons met tragic deaths. Elizabeth's son was executed by decapitation, Mary's son died on a cross between two thieves. Both sons were still young men when they died. Can you imagine the heartache of both mothers? As an old Yiddish proverb says, "Little children disturb your sleep, big ones, your life."

To have a little baby implies a big risk. It is the risk of loss. Some of you know about that loss. Some of you have lost children. For some, it may have happened in infancy. For others, after the child had reached adulthood. Regardless of when it happens, it brings indescribable pain. At such times all you can do is to believe in the God who loves you and whose care is eternal.

Marie L. Pemberton lost her beloved four-year-old Jeremy to leukemia. Jeremy died in June, and as Christmas approached, the pain of loss was still heavy on Marie's heart. She stood at her kitchen window numbly staring out at the snow. She saw Chris Martin, Jeremy's little friend, rolling snowballs and assembling a poor imitation of a snowman across the way. Poor Chris, Marie thought, he was always alone since Jeremy died.

Marie hadn't been much comfort to the lonely boy. Her grief had been so intense she could barely look at Chris, for when she did, thoughts of Jeremy leaped to mind. When Chris came to the fence between their backyards, trying for her attention, she ignored him and promptly went back inside. One day, when speaking to him could be avoided no longer, and he asked her where Jeremy was, she mumbled, "Ask your mother, Chris ” she can explain it better than I."

After that, Chris didn't want to talk to Marie. Instead, he would stare at her for a second or two and return to his play. Marie turned away from the kitchen window and resumed her housecleaning. Thank the good Lord her husband Joe had agreed to go light on Christmas this year. There would be no pine needles to sweep up afterwards, no mountain of dishes to wash, no holiday visitors. They would eat out Christmas Day. And if she kept the kitchen curtains drawn, there would be no Chris Martin to remind her of Jeremy.

Later in the afternoon, from the living room window, she was surprised to see Chris's father, George, in his driveway, taking a magnificent evergreen off the roof of his car. "It's two weeks before Christmas," she muttered. "Do they have to start so early?" (Never mind that when Jeremy was alive, their tree had been up the day after Thanksgiving.)

"They've already got their tree up," Marie told Joe at dinner.

"I thought you weren't interested in Christmas," he said.

"I'm not," Marie said as she went to answer the door.

It was Ellie Martin. "Come over and look at our tree, Marie," Ellie said. "And I have something else you've just got to see." At Joe's insistence, Marie went over to the Martin house. What would she say to Chris? she wondered. But the little boy wasn't about. Marie followed Ellie to the basement den, where the newly decorated tree stood in all its magnificence.

"Doesn't it give you the Christmas spirit?" asked Ellie. "Now, see this," she continued, as she led Marie to the creche and pointed to two baby figures tucked under a blanket in the manger. "Chris says they are Baby Jesus and Jeremy." Ellie's eyes watered as she continued. "Last summer when you sent him back over here to ask me about Jeremy, all I told him was that Jeremy had gone to heaven to be with Baby Jesus. When I placed the Christ Child in the crib this afternoon, he ran and got a doll and tucked it in alongside. When I asked him why, he reminded me of what I had said last summer."

"Jeremy with Jesus," Marie thought to herself ” it sounded and looked so right. "And a little child shall lead them" were the words racing through Marie's mind as she went looking for Chris, to hug him. Christmas had arrived.

Some of you know Marie's pain and Mary's and Elizabeth's. It may not be the loss of a child, but the loss of a parent or a brother or a sister that saddens you each year. Maybe this Christmas can be a time of healing.

A woman, pregnant with her first child late in life, was the first person in the New Testament to announce Christ's coming. She and her kinswoman Mary looked forward with eagerness to the birth of their children. Would that every birth could be anticipated like that. Elizabeth and Mary were women of faith. Faith is important to family life. There would come a time when both Elizabeth and Mary would have to entrust their sons to God. They knew their children were a gift from God. Regardless of what followed, they knew their children were always in God's care. That was their greatest hope and it is your hope and mine too with regard to everyone we love. This Christmas let us affirm our faith in the God of Elizabeth and Mary and their two sons who changed the world.

*A Child Shall Lead Them, Marie L. Pemberton (from THE OBLATES OF MARY).