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May 31, 2022“The Moment Your Greeting Sounded in My Ears…. the baby stirred in my womb for joy.”
So says Elizabeth to her cousin Mary in the opening of Luke’s (1:39-56) account of the Visitation.
If we focus at all carefully on these words and spend a moment with them, I think we see something very universal yet profoundly simple in what it means to be human: whenever we experience something very important and significant in our lives, be it joyful or painful, we need to share this experience with those we love and are close to us. We don’t want to keep it to ourselves.
Here we have 2 pregnant women, one well beyond child bearing age, the other quite young and a virgin. Each is sharing her immense joy with her cousin. A very simple yet profoundly human encounter.
Mary’s pregnancy will end with the birth of a Son into the humblest of circumstances. He will begin His life exactly as each one of us did: naked, totally vulnerable and dependent. One of us. God-with-us.
He will come to learn through joyful and painful experience all that it means to be human. He will show us by word and example how to be and live a fully human life. A life fully attuned to God and one another.
And finally He will give us the gift of Eternal Life.
If we pause for a moment to reflect on the One who is in Mary’s womb, perhaps we can, at least for a moment, tap into the true cause for joy that this Feast of the Visitation today offers us.
Mary goes on to say, in what we know as the ‘Magnificat’, -
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for He has looked with favor on His lowly servant.
Like Mary we, too, are God’s “lowly servants”.
Where/when/how/through whom has God looked down upon each one of us with favor?
Perhaps another moment to share Mary’s gratitude?
