The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Monday, May 31, 2021

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.” 

And Mary said: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.” 

Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Like the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity which the Church celebrated yesterday, the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary has its origins in the Middle Ages.  It was established by Pope Urban VI in 1389 during a very difficult period for the Church.  For centuries the Feast was celebrated on July 2, but in the 1962 Roman Missal it was moved to May 31 so that, in the Church year, it precedes the celebration of the Birth of St. John the Baptist.

“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah.”  The Archangel Gabriel had told the Blessed Virgin Mary of the pregnancy of her relative, Elizabeth, on the occasion of his Annunciation to her that she would conceive the Son of God by the Holy Spirit.  He seems to have had two purposes in mind, here.  First, to encourage Mary in her miraculous and utterly unprecedented conception of Jesus by pointing out that the much older Elizabeth had conceived by the power of God.  Second, to intimate to Mary that she should go to Elizabeth, not only to help her, but to be helped by her and her husband, the priest Zechariah.  Of all the humans then living, this couple could furnish the most assistance to her: Elizabeth through the experience of her conceiving well beyond the age of childbirth; and Zechariah, the priest who received a like vision of the Archangel Gabriel, and who could also counsel Mary.  Elizabeth, for her part, seems to understand that she was to avoid all visitors, especially the merely curious, and only to receive the help God would send her — the Blessed Virgin Mary — for, “Elizabeth his wife conceived and hid herself five months” (Luke 1, 24).  

The Blessed Virgin traveled “in haste” (which can also be translated from the Greek as “with diligence”).  She did not travel in a panic, but without delay.  Her urgency was to serve God completely and in all things, and it would seem that Gabriel had pointed her to go her relatives in Judea, rather than to remain at home.  She was seeking to assist her cousin and to learn whatever she could about what God expected of her.  Zechariah could communicate with her only through his writing tablet or by showing her passages in the Scriptures, which a scribe could have read to her.  Perhaps most importantly, he could have taught Mary, or reinforced for her, the value of silence in the face of incomprehensible mystery.  We ought to keep in mind that Gabriel did not provide much instruction for how the Virgin was to conduct herself during her pregnancy — not even as to whether to tell her betrothed, Joseph.  She may have wondered, after the Angel had left her, whether she was to tell anyone.  After all, the whole people of Israel waited in great expectation for the Messiah’s arrival.  Were they not entitled to know that his Birth was imminent?  She might also have wondered if she should now return to live in the Temple, where she had spent her early years.  In what more appropriate place could she have lived while the Child grew in her virginal womb?  She went without delay to seek counsel from the people whom God had indicated through his messenger.  While Mary did not even tell her parents, she must have confided in her betrothed, for he had a need to know.  And he accepted the truth she told him, for, as St. Jerome tells us, it was easier for him to believe that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit than that she had sinned in fornication.  After she departed, though, he did struggle in trying to understand what God expected of him, now.

“She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.”  The women of a house stayed in the back of the house where they could have the most privacy, and so Elizabeth would have kept there after finding herself pregnant.  Mary went into the house to greet Elizabeth, though Zechariah may have met her outside the house.  The grace that she brought in herself and which her Child brought would have gladdened the hearts of all in the vicinity.  The presence of a saint can do that.  This was the case with Mother Teresa.  A person could feel her enter a room, even if the person was unaware of it at the time.  A lightness of heart and clarity of mind fills all those around.  Certainly this effect would have been much magnified when the Virgin entered the house with her Child in her womb.  Luke tells us how Elizabeth felt it: “At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”  The Church teaches us the significance of this moment: that in that instant, John the Baptist was freed from original sin.

“Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.”  As the Rosary teaches us, we ought to meditate frequently on the three months in which the Virgin Mary remained with Zechariah, Elizabeth, and the unborn John the Baptist.  Let us consider the joy of those who were able to see the Blessed Virgin face to face every day, to encounter her in the market, to see her strolling along the road, to accompany her as she went out to the village well for water, to eat food cooked by her hands, to be comforted by her words.  Those who are devoted to her in this life know her care in their daily labors and cares, and this only whets the appetite of the soul to one day join her company in heaven.