Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We celebrate Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and join our voices with Mary’s Magnificat. I invite us to approach this day in profound humility and deep faith, asking our Mother to lead us to her Son that we might become more like Him. May we have the audacious faith today to believe that our Mother desires to draw close to us, to visit us, even us.
I share a testimony with you today with some reluctance. My hesitation comes from not wanting to draw attention to myself. Please know that I share my personal experience from a place of awe and wonder in my heart and my sole motivation is that you might be encouraged, grow in faith, and draw closer to God. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Last Friday, I looked up the readings for today so that I could begin prayerfully pondering them in preparation for writing this reflection. The first reading and the Gospel seemed quite difficult and so I felt led to focus on the psalm response, which was “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” from Matthew 5:3. Yesterday, I sat down to write this reflection and pulled up the readings. I was astonished to see that today is this important Feast and that the readings are entirely different than what I had seen initially! My amazement multiplied as I scrolled through the days preceding and following today trying to find those readings that I had wrongly attributed to today. They are nowhere to be found! I have no answer for what transpired. This mis-reading the readings is linked, however to a series of astounding events that happened earlier this month.
Ed and I have a particular devotion to Mary the Untier (or Undoer) of Knots. We have a statue of her in this representation on a dresser in our bedroom. Earlier in May (which is a Marian month, it turns out), I entered our bedroom and discovered that the statue was turned 90 degrees from the position in which I’d placed it. I didn’t think much of it, imagining that the statue had gotten jostled, but at the same time something flickered within me wondering if it could be a sign. I turned the statue back to its original orientation. On May 16 I discovered the statue once again turned 90 degrees to the same side as before. As I marveled over this “sign,” Ed reminded me that the first movement of the statue occurred on or around the Feast of our Lady of Fatima! In profound bewilderment, I’ve been sitting with this occurrence in prayer seeking to understand what this could mean. What am I to know? What am I to do? Immediately as I began to pray into this situation, Elizabeth’s words from Luke 1:43 became my words, “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
And that brings us to today’s readings, particularly the Gospel, and this significant Marian Feast Day. You can imagine my shock when I opened the readings yesterday and realized what had happened. It felt, symbolically, like another surprise “visitation” on this Feast of the Visitation. I felt overwhelmed and paralyzed as I thought about writing this reflection. I felt strongly led to pray the Rosary before attempting to write, and so I did. The fruit of my prayer was humility. Humility overall, and an increased desire to know Jesus more, particularly in His sufferings. Even writing this reflection required a humility that I had not experienced prior to today. Now I sense that rather than seeking answers to my “why?” and “what?” questions, the invitation is simply to emulate our Mother in her humility, obedience, and receptivity to God’s love, and allow her to bring me to her Son. I extend that same invitation to you.
“And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” What a humble cry from Elizabeth’s heart. Inherent in that query is “Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” We tend to think that a visitation from Mary would be reserved for someone “important,” someone more holy, someone destined for greatness. I believe this Feast Day tells us that just as Mary brought Jesus (in her womb) to her humble relative Elizabeth, she wants to bring Him to us and us to Him. I’m starting to realize that any time Jesus is born in us that Mary is there as both Mother and Midwife.
We tend to focus on Mary’s Fiat, her generous Yes to God and her obedience to the Father’s will. My eyes were opened recently to her profound and complete receptivity to the Father’s love. Perhaps this is why she was chosen. Mary was so uniquely receptive to the spousal love of God that the Divine was birthed within her! This miraculous event is unrepeatable. However, Christ wants to love each one of us with the fiery intimacy of spousal love; He desires consummate union with us as His Bride. You and I will never give birth to the Divine, but the Church teaches us that God’s desire is that we become divine. I’ve been earnestly praying for several years now to grow in radical intimacy with God. Perhaps it’s our Mother who will lead me there. I’m confident she wants to lead you there, too.
So, what can I say? The visitation of Mary to Elizabeth and what transpired between them was an extraordinary event. Any Marian apparition or visitation is an extraordinary event. And yet . . . and yet should we not humbly view such occurrences as ordinary, to be expected? Mary our Mother lives to intercede for us and to bring us to her Son our Lord. We are her daughters and sons. Should we not expect to know her and to receive her love and care in a personal way? Might we come to her today in humble gratitude, asking her to help us to give our “generous yes” to God; asking her to help us to surrender more fully to the Father’s love and will in more complete and utter receptivity; asking her to intercede for us that we might become divine, more and more conformed to the image of Christ? Today I pray that we may, and we will.
When I looked at the wrong readings for today, the psalm response was “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit.” I have to smile as I say, how appropriate for today! Poverty of spirit means that I recognize my deep need and desire for God and utter dependence upon God. It says that all that I lack is fulfilled in God and that I cannot meet this profound, primordial need in any way but God. Our Mother knows this vital truth better than anyone. The readings today are powerful – please read them deeply and with great joy, recognizing your poverty of spirit, and asking our Mother to intercede for you as you seek to grow in God’s Word.
I want to encourage you today, on this Feast of the Visitation, to rely more on our Mother. Invite her to visit you, to come to you, in whatever way she might choose, invite her to help you become more humble, invite her to “lend you her heart”, as St Mother Teresa prayed, invite her to bring her Son to you and you to Him. Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy . . . Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen!
-Elizabeth Wells