Since becoming a mother, Advent has taken on a deeper meaning. The end of pregnancy, with all its joys and hopes, aches and pains, fears and anticipation of labor, cannot be fully understood until experienced. And yet, it is self-evident that the final experiences of Our Lady's pregnancy and her experience of the birth of her Divine Son would have been much fuller and more perfect than our merely human experiences, for many reasons. The private revelation that Servant of God Cora Evans recounts in The Advent Story’s portion on the birth of Christ relates a few of these reasons. 

One of these is that her experience would not have included the pain and physical suffering that comes to each woman who bears children through the offering of her body. It was the Council of Trent that gave the clearest summation of the Church’s understanding of this over the years: Trent clarifies and summarizes that Mary did not experience the pains of labor. This is also reflected in the private revelation of Cora Evans in The Advent Story. At the birth of Christ, Mary would have been able to be fully focused on the coming of her Savior and her Child. I too am pregnant this Advent season (although not yet as far along as Our Lady would have been), looking forward with hope and anticipation to the birth of my child. I am not yet as far along as Our Lady would have been during Advent, but I know what it is like to finally be approaching the day of a child’s birth. With what great joy she must have looked forward to Christ’s birth and prayed prayers of gratitude for the great miracle taking place within her (a miracle far greater than the great miracle that takes place within every pregnant woman)?
Although Mary did not suffer in the physical way that mothers who give birth do, Our Lady suffered deeply at the end of Our Lord's life as well as during His life, as she anticipated and pondered the meaning of her Son's earthly life. As a mother, Our Lady suffered far more deeply and to a greater extent than the rest of us mothers. And then, as each of us experience inevitable suffering in our motherhood, Our Lady stands by us, comforting us and understanding the intimate suffering of a mother.

At the moment of Christ’s birth, as told in The Advent Story, there is a description of a great flash of light. It brought to my mind a few other instances in which I have heard that there may have been a flash of light. In Fr. Georges Lemaître’s theory of the formation of the universe in the big bang theory, a great flash of light is theorized to have occurred at the moment of the universe's creation. Scientists have recently proposed that there may be a flash of light at the moment of each tiny baby's conception within their mother. Finally, some scholars believe that the image of Christ on the shroud of Turin was created by yet another flash of light as Jesus overcome the power of death to rise from the dead. Some of these may be speculation, but they provide interesting food for thought. It seems within the realm of reason that God often gives a great flash of light to accompany certain great mysteries. However, only some of these have been visible to any humans. The Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, is, along with the Resurrection, the greatest miracle to have occurred. It is only fitting that it too was accompanied by a great flash of blinding light.

Finally, Cora Evans describes the moment that the Infant Christ first sees His beloved mother: the first thing His human eyes fall upon after His birth is His mother. Her words, the private revelation she was privy to, brought me back to that intimate bond that I have experienced with my own newborns. That experience is so deep, so profound, so unavoidable for mother and child. And this was the closeness between Mary and Jesus. This unbreakable bond is the bond that Christ and Our Lady shared. But perhaps more strikingly, this is the bond that He calls us to share in when He gives us His own mother from the Cross. This is the depth of the relationship that He and His mother desire for each of us to share within our own relationships with Mary. Let us ask Our Lady this Advent to walk with us as we remember the final days before Christ's birth so that through these days we might grow ever deeper in our relationship with and love of our heavenly mother.