The Feast of the Visitation, Tuesday, May 31, 2022 

Luke 1:39-56

Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” 

This feast celebrates the visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary, newly pregnant with the Son of God, to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  Both pregnancies are miraculous.  In the first case, a Virgin has conceived; in the second, a woman well passed child-bearing years.  By her visit to Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary shows herself the prompt handmaid of God.  Heedless of herself and of the dignity accorded to her through her virginal conception of the Son of God, she places herself at the service of another, taking the Angel Gabriel’s revelation to her of Elizabeth’s state as the command to go and assist her.  Elizabeth would have received Mary’s visit as confirmation of the miraculous nature of her conception and of the greatness of the child she would bear, since she had hidden herself in the house for months and no one could have known of it, unless revealed to them by God.

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.”  This should read, “Mary arose in those days, etc.”  The handmaid rose up from her position on the floor to carry out the Master’s command.  The favor shown to her by Almighty God does not tempt her to forget her place.  In her mind, the favor shows God’s glory and does not accord her glory.  Almost certainly she would have told her espoused, Joseph, because he had a need to know and when she returned from her cousin her own pregnancy would be obvious, for she intended to remain there for some time, assisting in whatever way she could.  “She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  The text does not say that she greeted Zechariah too.  As an elder, he may have stood with the other elders of the town at its gate, as was the longstanding custom.  He would have greeted Mary, whose visit he could not have anticipated, joyously but in silence, since he had been struck deaf and mute.  She, in her turn, would have found his condition astonishing, and also a confirmation of the miraculous nature of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.  Together they would have gone to the house.  Elizabeth would have found refuge in the very back of the house where the women usually slept for safety’s sake.  Unless she had servants, Mary’s voice would have been the first she had heard in three months.  And joined with Mary’s voice  was Another.  Her voice was now different.  And with it came grace.

“When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice.”  Like King David leapt before the Ark of the Covenant, John the Baptist leaps before the One signified by the Ark.  we might think of this “leaping” as a sign of the Resurrection to come, as when the souls of men and women rose up with Christ in his rising up (cf. Matthew 52-53).  “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb.”  It would be one thing to bless the Fruit of her womb, for Elizabeth knows through “divine inspiration that this is her Lord, but she also pronounces Mary as “blessed”.  On behalf of the human race, she acknowledges Mary’s unique holiness.  “And how does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”  She is astounded that Mary, whose womb is filled with the Son of God, should come to her in service.  Elizabeth saw herself as of no account before the Mother of her Lord, and her child leaping in her womb at Mary’s approach showed her greatness and that of her Child.  Mary, though, only saw herself as the handmaid.  It was her identity.  Not even this unprecedented favor changed that, in her eyes.  “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”  Elizabeth saw what we sometimes forget: Mary’s faith.  She truly and deeply believed that God would accomplish whatever he proposed to do.  Nothing was impossible for him.  

Mary’s faith is the model for our faith.  When Gabriel announced to Zechariah the priest that his aged wife would conceive, he doubted, though this had been done before in Jewish history.  When the same Angel told a simple Virgin that she would conceive the Son of God something that had never happened before, she only asked how this would be done in view of her firm and divinely prompted intention to remain a Virgin.  The Lord promises to forgive our sins if we are truly repentant and to bring us to everlasting life if we believe in him and obey his commandments — astounding promises.  We have faith in him that he will carry this out for us, no matter what we have done in our lives.