The Visitation of Our Lady

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zachariah's house and greeted Elizabeth.

“Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

“She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women, you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the Mother of my Lord?’” (Luke 1:39-43).

Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of the Visitation of Our Lady, an event that we remember every day, or frequently, when we say the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.

It's the response of Our Lady to her vocation. She captures the message of the angel.

The angel doesn't tell her to go and visit Elizabeth, but she does give her a hint. She tells how Elizabeth “is now in her sixth month” (Luke 1:36), and many things are happening with Elizabeth.

Our Lady takes the baton and runs with it. She gets that little hint from God about Elizabeth and about her own vocation. And so, with great initiative, she sets off to visit Elizabeth.

It's a four-day journey away. It involves an uphill journey. It's a complication because she has to leave her parents. She's still young to go on a relatively dangerous journey.

And she has to leave Joseph. And they're already engaged to be married. She cannot tell Joseph why she's going because this is something between her and God. She leaves all those things in the hands of God.

The Queen of Creation goes quickly. She rises, doesn't stand on ceremony.

The Latin translation of this event said, Exurgens Maria, surgere. It's the same verb that's used for the Resurrection. It's quite strong. She rises up out of her ordinary situation and goes off to visit Elizabeth.

With this reaction of Our Lady, we're reminded that we are here to serve—to serve other people, and to use opportunities to serve.

One of the first things that Our Lady shows us when she hears about her vocation is the quality of her friendship. She thinks, How can I help Elizabeth? What can I do for her?

She doesn't just think about it in a nebulous, theoretical sort of way, but she puts it into practice.

Our Lady is a woman of action. She goes with haste. There's a sense of urgency in her doing, as though she's telling us for all time that we also have to have a sense of urgency in our friendship, in our reaching out to others, and our apostolate.

She doesn't dilly-dally. It all happens in those days. She doesn't think about it for weeks or months. She struggles to overcome the obstacles. There are hills to be climbed, but she's not held back by any of the difficulties.

It’s a marvelous picture of Our Lady that we receive in this particular event of her life.

Pope John Paul liked to say that every vocation is like a pilgrimage of faith. And particularly, he calls the vocation of Our Lady a pilgrimage of faith faith (John Paul II, General Audience, March 21, 2001; Vatican II, Lumen gentium, Point 58).

She seizes the opportunity. She goes on this journey. A pilgrimage is a journeying forward toward a destination.

She goes forward with great faith and with great daring. There's initiative. There's dynamism. There's drive. There's intelligence. There's little regard for difficulties. There's a great supernatural vision. She's ready to overcome the obstacles.

St. Josemaría liked very much a phrase of the Old Testament, which is a phrase of faith: “The waters will pass through the mountains”–inter medium montium pertransibunt aquae (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 12; The Forge, Point 283; Ps. 104:10).

When rivers reach a mountain, they can't go over the mountain. Sometimes they can't go around the mountain. So the waters go through the mountains.

Or if you have a flood sometime and you're trying to stop the flood with sandbags, somehow or other, some of the waters get through the sandbags.

“The waters pass through the mountains.” They pass. They permeate all difficulties.

She gets over the problems of leaving her parents and leaving St. Joseph. She puts her vocation first: what God has asked of her.

Even though He hasn't asked explicitly, she gives priority to the things of God in her life. There's a great divine logic there, not a human logic. There's great fortitude. She faces the dangers. She puts her heart into it—lock, stock, and barrel.

There's also a great sense of abandonment. She leaves the problems in the hands of God. St. Paul to the Romans says, “Be joyful in hope, persevere in hardship, keep praying regularly” (Rom. 12:12).

Our Lady goes forward with great hope. She doesn't know what's going to await her in Ein Karem. But she goes forward anyway.

We see Our Lady journeying forward with a great peace. There's a joy and peace in her vocation. She's ready to do anything.

When she arrives at the house of Elizabeth, all sorts of miracles begin to happen. “Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy” (Luke 1:44).

Our Lady's response of faith to her vocation is rewarded by what she finds in the house of Elizabeth. The Holy Spirit speaks to her: “Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45).

Mary is greeted by the compliment of her faith by Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the first to praise the faith of Mary: “Blessed is she who believed.” And Elizabeth uses similar words that the angel has used: “Blessed are you among women.”

Our Lady's loyalty is rewarded: this thinking of others, this focusing on service, caring for people.

St. Josemaría in Christ Is Passing By says, “If we have this filial contact with Mary, we won't be able to think just about ourselves and our problems. Selfish personal problems will find no place in our mind” (J. Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 145).

In all of this reaction of Our Lady, we see a great generosity. She gives herself completely.

When she goes there, she doesn't just stay a few minutes or a few hours or even a few days. We’re told, “Mary stayed with her some three months and then went home” (Luke 1:56).

It was a serious contribution. She stayed long enough to talk long and hard with Elizabeth and to be of serious support to her during this difficult time.

Her support of Elizabeth was not accompanied by fanfare or trumpets. It's a corporal and spiritual work of mercy.

At the same time, she didn't stay there forever. We're not told that she was there for the birth of John the Baptist. She knew when to leave. She doesn't stay longer.

She also now has other priorities she has to think about. There are other things she has to do. She also must be about her Father's business.

The Prelate of Opus Dei in 2008 says, “Mary remained in the home of her cousin for three months, helping out in all her needs. How much Our Lady's presence can accomplish! Commenting on this scene, St. Ambrose writes, ‘If just her entrance into that house was so effective that, upon Mary's greeting the child leapt with joy in his mother's womb and his mother was filled with the Holy Spirit, how great must have been the effects of Mary's presence over such a long time!’” (Javier Echevarría, Letter, May 2008).

“Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honored with a visit from the Mother of my Lord?’” (Luke 1:41-43).

The humility of Elizabeth. She praises somebody much younger than her.

We are told, “We can apply the words of this Father and Doctor of the Church, St. Ambrose, to our response to Our Lord. If we strive to stay very close to Our Lady during the month of May and always, how many graces will be poured upon our souls! Among others, the great joy of knowing that we are friends and children of God” (Javier Echevarría, ibid.).

Our Lady gives a total submission to her vocation—lock, stock and barrel. She holds nothing back.

In the Furrow we’re told, “‘Blessed are you for your believing,’ says Elizabeth to Our Mother. —Union with God, supernatural virtue, always bring with it the attractive practice of human virtues: Mary brought joy to her cousin's home because she ‘brought’ Christ” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 566).

We also have to bring that similar joy to the people around us, to bring a great joy because we bring Christ. It was the greatest gift that Mary could bring.

Our Lady is a great example of Christian feminism, of what her freedom stood for. She was free to go to Elizabeth or she was free to stay at home. She was free to correspond to the plans of God or she was free to say no. She was unmarried, she was pregnant, she was poor.

What did her freedom stand for? First and foremost: for life, for marriage, for the family, for true love. She is met by that humility of Elizabeth: “How do I deserve to be honored with a visit from the Mother of my Lord?”

Elizabeth is moved by the Holy Spirit to call Mary “the Mother of my Lord” even though Mary was much younger.

Our Lady corresponds to her vocation, and along the way, the Holy Spirit speaks to her. When we correspond to our vocation, the Holy Spirit also speaks to us.

He fills us with joy, just as the child leapt for joy in her womb. The presence of Mary in our life fills us with joy. John the Baptist speaks by leaping. He makes himself heard. He recognizes the voice of Our Lady.

The whole role of John was to prepare the way of the Lord. He's the precursor of the Messiah, and already in the womb, he's already that precursor. He has not seen the light (cf. John 1:7-8), but he points the way to the Son, “the Sun of Justice” (Mal. 4:2) who has come into the world.

Then Our Lady's response pours forth in the Magnificat, one of the most beautiful prayers in the whole of the New Testament.

“My soul magnifies the Lord; and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; because he has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid. Henceforth all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, and his faithful love extends age after age to those who fear him” (Luke 1:46-50).

This prayer is reminiscent of parts of the Old Testament. It has a singular beauty. Mary glorifies God for making her the Mother of her Savior, which is why all future generations will call her blessed. God always has a preference for the humble.

“He has used the power of his arm; he has routed the arrogant of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly. He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:51-53).

He looks upon the lowliness of His handmaid. He has always taken care of the Chosen People in accordance with His promise, and now He gives them the greatest honor by becoming a Jew.

“He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants forever” (Luke 1:54-55).

Mary's soul overflows in the Magnificat. It's full of peace. It's full of joy. It's full of gratitude. Wonderful words.

We could try to bring that wonderful prayer of Our Lady to our own personal prayer. Say those beautiful words with a certain frequency: “His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear him” (Luke 1:50).

Mary knew the mercy of God very well.

“Mary, then,” says John Paul II, “is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy. She knows its price; she knows how great it is. In this sense,” he says, “we call her the Mother of mercy: Our Lady of mercy, or Mother of divine mercy; in each one of these titles there is a deep theological meaning, because they express the special preparation of her soul, of her whole personality, so that she was able to perceive, through the complex events, first of Israel, then of every individual, of the whole of God's mercy and of his plans for salvation, that mercy of which ‘from generation to generation’ (Luke 1:50) people become sharers according to the eternal design of the most Holy Trinity” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in Misericordia, November 13, 1980).

We are also told that Our Lady will lift up the lowly. She will put down the proud (cf. Luke 1:52).

We’re told in Friends of God, “When pride takes hold of a soul, it's of no surprise to find it bringing along with it a whole string of other vices: greed, self-indulgence, envy, injustice. The proud person is always vainly striving to dethrone God, who is merciful to all his creatures, so as to make room for himself and his ever-cruel ways.”

We’re told that the Lord “has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly. He has filled the starving with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).

“We should beg,” said St. Josemaría, [beg] “God not to let us fall into this temptation. Pride is the worst sin of all, and the most ridiculous. If, with its multiple delusions, it manages to get a hold, the unfortunate victim begins to build up a facade, to fill himself with emptiness, and becomes conceited like the toad in the fable, which, in order to show off, puffed itself up until it burst.

“Pride is unpleasant, even from a human point of view. The person who rates himself better than everyone and everything is constantly studying himself and looking down on other people, who in turn react by ridiculing his foolish vanity” (J. Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 100).

When we see the humility of Our Lady, we could ask her with greater insistence that she might make us humbler, so that we might follow the beautiful example she gives us in giving ourselves to others, in forgetting ourselves, in serving in all the ways that we can.

“To give oneself sincerely,” we are told in The Forge, “to others is so effective that God rewards it with a humility filled with cheerfulness” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 591).

Giving ourselves is a virtue of great souls. They find their reward in the act of giving. The generous person knows how to give without demanding; to give to others not because of what we are going to get.

It's not, ‘I give to you because you are going to give back to me.’ It's giving unconditionally. Giving enlarges the heart.

We could ask Our Lord that with the passage of time, we might maintain and strengthen our generosity. We need to maintain it, not diminish it, so that like Our Lady, we can give ourselves again and again, in all the different moments of our pilgrimage of faith, with whatever it is that God may be asking of us.

When there is generosity and self-giving in a family, there is peace, there is serenity, there is joy. It's a great thing to ask God for.

When we look to Our Lady, the model of all the virtues, we find that she's a great teacher.

Happiness in this world is found through giving and self-giving. Christ left nothing for Himself, and He learns that humanly in the home in Nazareth, from Our Lady, from St. Joseph.

God loves generosity. One of the things we find from looking at the life of St. Joseph in this Year of St. Joseph [January 1, 2020 to December 8, 2021] is that constant self-giving—beginning and beginning again in new circumstances, in new situations, with a deeper humility to give more all the time.

Glory to self is vainglory. On the ruins of our self-love, God wants to build the castle of our sanctification.

We can ask Our Mother to help us to see the aspects of pride that may be lurking deep in the crevices of our souls; that pride that's always there.

The best way to save our souls is self-forgetfulness. At the back of my mind, is there an opinion that somehow, I am superior? I need to remind myself that I am nothing.

Maybe I know that I'm a trash can, but what happens when I'm treated like a trash can? I must remind myself that I'm nothing.

We receive less blows than we deserve. I'm nothing, but what happens when people treat me as nothing?

“Humility frees us to love and to serve others selflessly, for their sake rather than our own. True humility is not feeling bad about yourself, or having a low opinion of yourself, or thinking of yourself as inferior to others. True humility frees us from preoccupation with self, whereas low self-opinion can tend to focus our attention on ourselves” (Don Schwager, Commentary, Luke 14:7-11).

We have to try and grow in this virtue and look again and again at the example that Our Lady gives us: to see that pride is like the poison of the snake (Ps. 58:4) and that humility is the foundation of all the human supernatural virtues (St. Augustine) because God resists the proud and gives His grace to the humble (Prov. 3:34, 1 Pet. 5:5). The proud person tends to be self-sufficient.

We can ask for a deeper humility in family life; the humility to place the needs of others above our own. To pass unnoticed.

When the blows come or the humiliations come, to see these as a grace, a gift that God has given to me to stand on my own ego, on my own love of self, and therefore to grow in humility.

That allows us to be more docile, more available to talk about other people, not about ourselves. That allows us to give credit to God for all the good that there may be in our life.

It means we don't make ourselves indispensable. We see all the talents that God has given to us as an opportunity to serve others, which we can always do better.

It's humility to accept the cross when it comes, even if it's unjust. Accept the things that are said to us in a spiritual direction—to obey and to want to obey always.

St. Benedict says, “If humility is truth, then a significant part of its practice must involve bringing out into the daylight of another's judgment whatever is hidden and, therefore, subject to delusion” (Michael Casey, Truthful Living: Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility).

So, we have to get out those hidden things that may be there that need to come out into that “daylight of another's judgment,” if we are to grow in holiness.

When we look at the whole scene of Ein Karem, we see there's great joy there. “The child leapt for joy” and Elizabeth was full of joy, Mary was full of joy. It's a very beautiful scene. There are many beautiful consequences.

We can ask Our Lady, on this last day of May, that she might teach us always how to bring joy wherever we go, joy and peace, just like she did on this occasion of her visit to St. Elizabeth.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

MVF