VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

The Visitation

Feast day: 31 May

A young girl was travelling along the wild tracts of a hilly country. She was hastening to a certain town named Ain Karim, and carrying in her bosom a burden so precious, that if certain people knew of it she would pay for it with her life. That was two thousand years ago.

Nobody need think twice to know who this young girl was. The Virgin Mary of Nazareth who was on her way to her cousin Elizabeth. The precious burden she was bearing was the Son of God himself - bearing him in her womb. Braving hardship and danger she sped on her way, because above the awareness of danger and hardship was a nobler consciousness, that of love and service.

“And there entering in she gave Elizabeth greeting.” Mary opened her lips and greeted Elizabeth. There is nothing special about the fact of greeting. It is something that is so ordinary, that everybody takes it for granted. So, if it is so normal, why does the evangelist Luke make special mention of it? The Gospels, as you know, are very concise accounts of Our Lord’s life and usually you should not expect to find household details mentioned therein. And so, why mention a simple affair as “and there entering in she gave Elizabeth greeting?” We have the answer from the lips of Elizabeth herself. She told our Blessed Mother, “As soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy!” And the evangelist adds, “And Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy Spirit.” Therefore, Mary’s word of greeting was no ordinary salutation.  When your friend greets you it gives you some happiness, but it does not bring about your sanctification and salvation. But with Mary it was different: as soon as she opened her mouth, John the Baptist was sanctified and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary’s words were like the words of Baptism. Mary’s word was like a sacrament simply because Jesus was acting through her. He was waiting for Mary to utter her words to exercise his saving action on others. It seemed he could hardly wait.

If it were not for the presence of Jesus the words of our Blessed Lady would have had no effect. It would have been only a friendly social gesture.  But Jesus waited for her to speak for him to act. He willed to act through her, or rather together with her, resulting in the sanctifying of Elizabeth and the child she was carrying. It looked like the Saviour couldn’t wait. Already present in the womb, Jesus meant salvation, strength and mercy. During the three years of his public life, Our Lord Jesus walked through the flood of physical pain and moral shame, healing them all with a word, with a touch, with an act of his will.

 Then the young Mary sang her great canticle of joy and self-knowledge in God: “My soul glorifies the Lord...the Almighty works marvels for me...all generations will call me blessed...” Mary was not able to respond this way at the Annunciation when the angel greeted her with, “Hail, full of grace.” But the elderly Elizabeth’s words of delighted recognition, namely, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” prompted Mary’s “Magnificat”. It seems that such a deep and joyful realisation can be the fruit of a simple good deed or generous word spoken to someone in need. Again and again, to our astonishment we discover that it is in the poor, in those who need our help, that the Lord is waiting to fill us with the joyful fact that we are blessed and healed. Like Mary, then, according to the prophet Isaiah, we shall experience enlightenment of some kind but also “our wound will quickly be healed over” (Isaiah 58, 6 – 8).

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

--------------------------------------Oliver Treanor ------------------------------

The Virgin Mary’s joyful song extolling God’s goodness – the Magnificat – is such an extraordinary hymn it is included in the Prayer of the Church every evening of the year at Vespers. It is a richly textured composition of many Old Testament passages announcing the mercy now brought to fulfilment in the Virgin herself and the Child she carries. This prayer is recommended for many reasons, not least because it is the Gospel (Lk 1, 46 -55) inspired by the Holy Spirit, the saving Word of life and light that overcomes evil. It also embodies the soul of the Immaculate one who is all things to God who is all in all to her. Obedient daughter of the Father, beloved Mother of the Son, faithful Spouse of the Paraclete, no one is better placed to worship God than the one who relates to him in the fullness of every meaningful human relationship possible.

That the Magnificat is the perfect devotion is clear from St. Augustine’s criterion of authentic prayer – his gold standard, as it were: “If we are praying in the right way”, he maintained, “we say nothing that has not already a place in the Lord’s Prayer”, since to pray in a way unrelated to the Our Father would be to pray “in a fleshly, unspiritual manner”, inappropriate for “people reborn in the Spirit” (Letter 130). When we place the Magnificat alongside the Pater Noster and compare them in content and form we discover something interesting. Their subject-matter is perfectly congruent, each point matching its corresponding one precisely, while their form differs in one significant detail only – and in this Mary’s prayer complements that of her Son. Whereas the Our Father is intercessory – a pleading for those things Christ wished us to request – the song of Mary is acclamatory: it affirms that the Father will in fact, does in fact, provide all that is appropriate to those who ask him.

So: the hopeful children dare to petition the “heavenly one” as their Father; the Mother affirms they are correct and should do so glorifying the Lord and rejoicing in God their Saviour. In the Pater we implore that his name be kept holy – with which Mary readily concurs, for truly, she says, “holy is his name”. Then we ask for his kingdom to come so that his will might be done; she proclaims it already has: “he puts forth his arm in strength, he scatters the proud, casts down the mighty, raises the lowly”. In her Son and his, God’s victory over sin and death is, even now, in our midst. “Give us our daily bread”, we intercede; to which the Woman who brings the Living Bread asserts from experience that indeed “he fills the starving with good things.”

“Forgive us our trespasses” – uttered quietly and vulnerably because of wounds still fresh and tender; to which Mary, sensing the pain and the need, proclaims three times a mercy more tender still that will always be fresh and deep: “His mercy is from age to age”, “He remembers his mercy”, “his mercy promised to Abraham and his sons forever”. She who would one day stand by the Cross already knows the weight of that mercy in her womb. Finally, the Lord’s Prayer petitions for the ultimate request: “not into temptation but deliver is from evil”, today, everyday and at the end. Mary’s affirmation of this is equally conclusive: the ultimate consolation, serene and confident and beyond dispute: “He protects Israel his child”, echoing Hosea and the Pentateuch, the great voices that prepared for the voice of Mary articulating the last word of the Word of God that she proclaims and affirms from her heart in every generation.