The Visitation of Our Lady (2026)

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, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We are told in St. Luke that “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah” (Luke 1:39). Today’s feast, established by Pope Urban the Sixth in 1389, is located between Our Lord’s Annunciation and the birth of John the Baptist. In keeping with what we read in the Gospel, it commemorates Our Lady’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, who was already advanced in years, to help her during the period of her confinement, and at the same time to share with her the jubilation at the wonders wrought by God in both of them.

This feast, with which we close the month dedicated to Our Lady, proclaims her mediation, her spirit of service, and her profound humility. It teaches us to carry the spirit of Christian happiness with us wherever we go, so that like Mary, we will be continually a source of joy for all mankind.

In the entrance antiphon of today’s Mass, it says, “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he has done for me” (Ps. 66:16). Shortly after the Annunciation, Our Lady went to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who lived in the hill country of Judea, about four or five days’ journey from Nazareth. “In those days,” says St. Luke, “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a city of Judah” (Luke 1:39).

The Blessed Virgin, having learned from the angel about Elizabeth’s pregnancy, moved by charity, hurries to lend a hand with her household chores. Nobody obliges her to go. God, through the angel, had not asked her to do so. Nor has Elizabeth looked for help either. One writer says Mary could have remained at home to get on with preparing for the arrival of her son, the Messiah. But she joyfully sets out on the journey with haste and goes to offer Elizabeth her homely assistance.

We accompany Mary on our way in our prayer, and we tell her in the words of today’s first reading of the Mass: “Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord your God is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will renew you in his love. He will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival” (Zeph. 3:14–17).

It’s easy to imagine the great joy that filled Our Lady’s heart and the great desire that she had to share it. One writer says, “Behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son.” The angel had told her and gave Mary to understand that Elizabeth’s conception was truly extraordinary and was also connected in some way with the Messiah who was to come.

After her long journey, Our Lady entered Zechariah’s house and greeted her cousin. “And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:41). That house was transformed by the presence of Jesus and Mary. Her greeting was efficacious. It filled Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit. With her tongue, through her prophetic utterance, she caused a river of divine gifts to spring up in her cousin from a fountain. In effect, wherever she who is full of grace goes, says one writer, everything is filled to overflowing with joy.

This wonderful effect is worked by Jesus through Mary, who right from the beginning is associated with the redemption and the joy that Christ brings to the world.

John Paul the Second says today’s feast of the Visitation reveals to us one aspect of Mary’s interior life: namely, her disposition of humble service and selfless love for whoever needs her help. This event, which we contemplate in the Second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, invites us to give ourselves promptly, happily, and unpretentiously to the people around us.

In The Furrow, we’re told very often the best service we can offer is simply to share with them the happiness that overflows from our hearts. But we can only do this if we stay very close to Our Lord through the faithful fulfillment of the moments of the prayer we have throughout the day. Union with God, supernatural virtue, also brings with it the attractive practice of human virtues. Mary brought joy to her cousin’s home because she brought Christ.

We can ask ourselves, well, do I bring Christ with me? And with him joy wherever I go, whether it’s to work, or visiting friends, or someone who is sick? Does our presence habitually cause people to be cheered up?

At Our Lady’s arrival, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims in a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:42–44).

Elizabeth does not just call her blessed, but she also explains why: It’s because the fruit of her womb, her Son, who is blessed forever. We could think of all the times that we have repeated those same words whenever we say the Hail Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Do we say them as joyfully as Elizabeth did? They can often act as an aspiration to unite us with our heavenly Mother while we’re working, or walking along the street, or whenever we see one of her images.

The Second Vatican Council says Mary and Jesus are always together. The most wonderful works of Jesus are performed, as they are now, in intimate union with his mother. Our Mother in the order of grace. This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation, says the Second Vatican Council, is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death.

Today we learn once more, says St. Josemaría, that each encounter with Mary implies a new discovery of Jesus. If you seek Mary, you will find Jesus. And you will learn a bit more about what is in the heart of a God who humbles himself, who makes himself accessible in the midst of the routine of ordinary life.

God’s great gift to mankind, whereby we can get to know and love Christ, had its beginning in Mary’s faith, whose perfect fulfillment Elizabeth now openly reveals. The fullness of grace, says John Paul the Second, announced by the angels, means the gift of God himself. Mary’s faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift.

The Virgin Mary, who had already pronounced her complete and unconditional fiat—“Be it done unto me”—presents herself at the threshold of Zechariah’s house as the Mother of the Son of God. This is Elizabeth’s joyful discovery, and ours too. It’s one we can never get used to.

The characteristic feature of this mystery of the Rosary is the all-pervading atmosphere of gladness that surrounds it. The mystery of the Visitation is a mystery of joy. John Paul the Second says John the Baptist serves exultantly in his mother’s womb. Elizabeth, rejoicing at the gift of maternity, bursts forth in blessings to the Lord and in response to Elizabeth’s praises, Mary elevates her heart to God in the Magnificat, a hymn overflowing with Messianic joy.

The house of Zechariah and Elizabeth exudes the spirit of the Old Testament at its most sublime, while Mary encloses in her womb the mystery which inaugurates the New Testament. The Magnificat, Mary’s canticle, is the song of the Messianic times, in which there mingles the joy of the ancient and the new Israel.

Mary’s hymn has spread far and wide and has become the prayer of the whole Church in all ages. This is the backdrop against which we perceive the full significance of the secret Mary treasured in her heart. The great mystery revealed to her by the angel finds its purest expression in the Magnificat. There is no trace in it of pretense or of affectation. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–47). The words so full of nobility and of intimate union with the Creator are a perfect mirror of Our Lady’s soul.

Together with this canticle of joy and humility, the Blessed Virgin has also left us a prophecy. “Henceforth,” she exclaims, “all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). From the earliest times, Our Lady is honored under the title of Mother of God, under whose protection the faithful take refuge together in prayer in all their perils and necessities.

Accordingly, following the Council of Ephesus, there was a remarkable growth in the cult of the people of God towards Mary, in veneration and love, in invocation and imitation, according to her own prophetic words: “All generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me” (Luke 1:48–49).

During her lifetime, Our Lady was not conspicuous for spectacular deeds. The Gospel makes no mention of any miracles she did while she was on earth, and has left us a very scanty record of the words she spoke. Externally, her life was like that of any housewife who has to look after her family.

Nevertheless, her marvelous prophecy has been fulfilled literally. Who can record all the praises made in Our Lady’s honor? The invocations, the sanctuaries, the offerings, the Marian devotions. For twenty centuries she’s been called blessed by people in all walks of life: intellectuals, illiterates, kings, warriors, tradesmen, men and women, infants and the elderly. We are fulfilling that prophecy at this very moment, as we say to her in the intimacy of our heart: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.

Pope St. John Paul says we have invoked her in a special way during the month of May. But the month of May cannot end. It has to continue in our life. Because our veneration and our love for her, the devotion we have to Our Lady, cannot disappear from our hearts, but rather has to grow and express itself in a witness of Christian living, fashioned according to the example of Mary. “The name of the beautiful flower that I ever invoke morning and evening,” as Dante puts it.

In discovering Mary, we discover Jesus. In The Furrow, we’re told: “What must the cheerful way Jesus looked at people have been like? His must have been the same look that shone from the eyes of his Mother, who could not contain her joy. ‘My soul magnifies the Lord,’ and her soul glorified the Lord as she carried within her and walked with him by her side. Oh Mother, may we, like you, rejoice to be with him and to hold him.”

We’re told in St. Luke that “the good man out of the treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush” (Luke 6:43–44).

The meaning of this double comparison of the tree giving forth good or bad fruits, and of the man speaking from the depth of his heart, Our Lord teaches us that sanctity cannot be feigned or substituted for by anything else. The man simply gives what is in him, no more and no less.

St. Bede elaborates on that idea. He says the treasure of a soul is the same as the root of a tree. A person with a treasure of patience and charity in his soul produces beautiful fruits. He loves his neighbor and possesses all the qualities that Jesus recommends. He loves his enemies, does good to those who hate him, blesses those who curse him, and prays for the one who slanders him. But the man who has a source of evil in his soul does the exact opposite. He hates his friends, speaks badly of the one who loves him, and does all the other things condemned by Our Lord.

Our Lady’s heart was filled with graces by the Holy Spirit. Except for Christ’s life, no life ever gave or will give forth such sweet fruit as the life of Our Lady has done. All graces come to us and keep coming to us through her. Above all, Jesus himself comes to us, the blessed fruit of her most pure womb. From her lips have poured forth the greatest, most pleasing, and most tender praises of God. From her we have all received the best advice: “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).

It is advice that she repeats silently in the intimacy of our hearts. The Virgin Mary received the angel’s message in Nazareth, the message by which she learnt what had been God’s will for her from all eternity: that she should be the Mother of his Son, the Savior of the human race.

The messenger greets Mary “full of grace.” He calls her in this way as if it was her real name. He doesn’t call her by her proper earthly name, Miriam, but by the name “full of grace.” What does that mean? Why does the angel address the Virgin of Nazareth in that way?

John Paul the Second says when we read that the messenger addresses Mary as “full of grace,” the Gospel context, which mingles revelations and ancient promises, enables us to understand that among all the spiritual blessings in Christ, this is a special blessing. In the mystery of Christ she is present even before the creation of the world, as the one whom the Father has chosen as mother of his Son in the incarnation. And what is more, together with the Father, the Son has chosen her, entrusting her eternally to the Spirit of holiness.

Our Lady’s dignity flows from the initial grace that she received, preparing her to be the mother of God. This grace places her in a realm distinct from that of the angels and the saints. The Second Vatican Council says Mary is the mother of the Son of God, and therefore she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Because of this gift of sublime grace, she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth.

We’re told in The Forge: “All goodness, all beauty, all majesty, all loveliness, all grace adorn our Mother. Doesn’t it make you fall in love to have a mother like that?” St. Thomas states that the goodness of one grace is greater than the natural goodness of the entire universe. The smallest amount of sanctifying grace within the soul of a child after his or her baptism is worth more than the natural goods of the entire universe, more than all of created nature including the angels.

Grace is a participation in God’s inner life, which is greater than all miracles. What would our soul, Mary’s soul, be like, when God encompassed her with all the possible splendor and with his infinite love? God was pleased with Mary in the eternity of his being. From always, in a continuous present, God delights in the thought of his Mother, Daughter, and Spouse.

One writer says it’s not chance or caprice that the Church in her liturgy has applied to Our Lady those words of Scripture whose direct meaning refers to uncreated wisdom. We read in the Book of Proverbs: “Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men. And now, my sons, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways” (Prov. 8:23–32).

Our Lady is the throne of grace in a very profound way. To her we can apply those words from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). The throne is a symbol of authority, of the authority which belongs to God, who is the King of the living and the dead. But the throne is also a throne of grace and mercy. We can apply it to Our Lady according to ancient liturgical texts. Through her, all graces come to us.

Mary’s protection is like a spiritual river that has been pouring down upon all men for nearly 2,000 years. It is a tree that keeps giving fruit, a tree that God willed to plant with so much love. It is the immense treasure of Mary, who is constantly caring for her children. What better way to obtain divine mercy than by having recourse to the mother of God who is also our mother? The plenitude of grace with which God wished to fill her soul is an immense gift for us.

St. Alphonsus Liguori in The Glories of Mary says, “Let us give thanks to God for having given us his Mother as our own, for having made her so exquisitely beautiful in her whole being.” The best way to thank him is to love her very much, to deal with her throughout each day, to learn to imitate her in her love for her Son and in her complete availability for whatever refers to God.

We say to her “Hail full of grace,” and we are captivated by so much greatness and so much beauty, as the Archangel Gabriel must have been when he appeared before her. Her name: Mother of God. Your name: you are all my love.

Our Lady had the fullness of grace which corresponded to her at every moment. And this grace grew and increased day by day. Since graces and supernatural gifts do not limit the capacity of the one receiving them but rather increase and expand that capacity for new gifts. The more we love God, the more our soul is enabled to love him further and to receive more grace. By loving we can obtain new powers to love. Whoever loves more has a greater desire to love and a greater capacity for loving.

Grace invites more grace, and a plenitude of grace calls for an ever greater plenitude. Mary’s soul at the first instant of its creation received an immense treasure of graces. At that moment the words of the angel spoke to her on the day of the Annunciation were already fulfilled. Pope Pius the Ninth said, “From the beginning, Mary has been loved by God above all creatures, because the Lord was fully pleased with her and filled her with supernatural graces, more than all the angelic spirits and more than all the saints.” St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Many saints and doctors of the Church consider that the initial grace in Mary was greater than the final grace of all other beings.”

Our Lady, St. Thomas states that her dignity is in a certain sense infinite. Let us turn to Our Lady on this great feast of the Visitation and ask her that we may learn from all the virtues that she shows us in that journey in which she goes with haste to visit her cousin 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, St. 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.

EW