How great it is that we Catholics take the time to observe several important moments of our faith, moments that might otherwise just simply get passed over.  Today's feast is one example.  Not only do we have the Feast of the Annunciation - usually March 25, but this year April 8th, due to Holy Week and Easter Week), but we take the time to celebrate what happens next in the scriptures, after the angel visits Mary and tells her she will give birth to God's Son.

 

In one way, I think it is rather extraordinary that we spend a whole day celebrating the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56).  That's because the grand scheme of Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection, it seems like a small event, an ordinary event.  There's no angel there, just these two women. One pregnant woman goes to visit another pregnant woman.  I think of myself, pregnant with my first child, and I happened to be pregnant at the same time as my sister and several friends.  We all recounted experiences together of what it was like to be experiencing all the firsts of pregnancy - the baby moving, the baby hiccupping, worries about labor, and so on.  Insofar as historians have access to records of midwives and birth and labor in the near eastern world, I think what I experienced is not far removed from what women for many centuries have discussed.

 

But in another sense, of course, there's something quite extraordinary going on in the Visitation.  Elizabeth and Mary are two humans proclaiming the gospel explicitly for the first time since Luke started his narrative. 

 

When we left Mary at the Annunciation, it was the angel who had proclaimed the good news of who Jesus is and what he will do.  And while is made there of Mary saying "Yes" to God's news, in that scene we don't see much of what Mary makes of all this. I wonder if she was maybe just a bit in shock, if she really would have had an articulate response at that point?  I know that even in just my very ordinary pregnancies that have been much sought after, I always find myself in a bit of shock to discover I'm pregnant.  

 

By the next verse, which is some weeks later, however, it is clear that Mary's over whatever shock she may have had, and now she's very articulate about who this baby is that she carrying. Indeed, Mary names who her baby is by using phrases that would have been very familiar to Jewish ears.  In today's first reading, we can see echoes of her words about how in this baby, God has cast down the mighty  and lifted up the lowly.  But if you have time today, take a look, too, at 1 Samuel 2 in the Old Testament.  There you'll see Hannah's poem of thanksgiving for her son Samuel, who ends up being a great prophet.  The words are very, very similar to Mary's.

 

The fact that Mary is using Old Testament stories to name who Jesus is, is important.  In doing so, she is saying: "God promised to send us a Son" and here is the fulfillment of that promise.  The good news is not only that we have this Son, but this realization that God keeps promises.  Mary gets to proclaim that good news.

 

On today's feast day, let us be reminded of the ways God fulfills promises in our own lives - and let us give thanks for Mary's great witness of God's good news.

 

- Jana M. Bennett