Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
“Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
What a happy occasion! Mary, in haste, travels to the hills to visit her relative Elizabeth. How often have we, as Catholics, imagined their reunion?
Perhaps what we picture matches some of the details depicted in Jen Norton’s painting The Visitation.
Is it our Blessed Mother who approaches Elizabeth, who waits for her, carrying John the Baptist in her womb? From a distance, Mary is aglow, shining like a star, the Son of God within her own womb as the source of her dazzling light.
We see the women and their children, yet unborn, surrounded by a myriad of vibrant flowers, underneath a sky rich with the colors of dawn (or dusk?), as if God Himself painted the scenery just for this occasion.
Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, declares to Mary in this moment, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Elizabeth’s heartfelt prophetic declaration must have moved our Blessed Mother profoundly.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that Mary’s YES is the finest example we could ever have of what it looks like to trust God: “Throughout her life and until her last ordeal when Jesus her son died on the cross, Mary's faith never wavered. She never ceased to believe in the fulfillment of God's word. And so the Church venerates in Mary the purest realization of faith” (149).
So let us now sit for a while with Jen Norton’s Visitation, a Biblical event that she retells with brushstrokes of color as vital and vigorous as the children in their mothers’ wombs. Let us also be grateful for Mary’s trust, which is to serve as an example of faith for us all.
—Rachael Griggs