Our Visitation

Some of the greatest work of my life is connecting heart to heart with my Sisters in Christ. Mary and Elizabeth were the first to live the fruits of the feminine genius. May these words inspire us to do the same.

As the brilliance fades so does the wild beating of my heart. I lean into the tree trunk at my back.  I don’t remember sinking to my feet, but I am grateful for the support behind and below me.  My shaking hands slowly move to my belly as I ponder the words I spoke to the angel.  How can this be?

I have been overshadowed.  I don’t even know what this means except that it fills me with joy and peace. The wonder of it leaves me stunned, breathless. I stare at my hands, the rough weave of my dress covering my stomach. A child. I lift my eyes to the sky in awe, laughing at the glorious miracle of this announcement,

this promise, and then I get up and

begin to run.

***

My mind wanders as I stand at the basin scraping dishes from our evening meal. I tuck a tendril of silver hair back into my veil and notice a new twinge in my back as the child in my womb grows day by day, a mystery still except for how my body has stretched and swollen.  I smile to myself, still reveling in the abundance of God.  A child. After years of sorrow, years of secretly feeling forgotten, the transcendent generosity of the Lord fills my womb, fills my husband’s silence.

I hear a call and move to the doorway to look down the path, wiping my hands on my apron as an unexpected warmth surges through my body. Her voice comes again, “Elizabeth!” followed by my gasp as the baby somersaults in my womb. Laughing, I run into the garden, one hand pressed to my belly and the other outstretched to embrace the mother of my Lord.

***

The Visitation reveals the first encounter with Christ.  Mary is visited and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit.  Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit through her child who is “filled with the Holy Spirit, even before he is born.” (Luke 1:15). Each woman has a deep encounter with God that propels her to have a deep encounter with the other: Mary, in her haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, and Elizabeth in her effusive receptivity to Mary’s presence and the Lord within her.  

In the Visitation, Mary and Elizabeth call forth the presence of God in each other.  They model the virtues of the feminine genius described by Pope St John Paul the Great in Mulieris Dignitatem (1988): receptivity, sensitivity, generosity, and maternity.

They are receptive to God’s plan for their lives.  Mary is a model of humility and obedience through her fiat to the angel.  Elizabeth models acceptance and trust by living a blameless life despite her infertility. Mary and Elizabeth are sensitive to and receptive of the movement of the Holy Spirit and what God desires to birth within each of them. Mary embodies generosity as she hastens to Elizabeth, whose generosity flows back to Mary over the next three months together in her home. Their maternity is a gift of self, a gift to each other, and a gift to the kingdom of God. The visitation of two holy women calls forth the fullness of who they are called to be as women and as daughters of God.

Heart calling heart. Hope beckoning hope. Faith birthing faith.

As it is for the mother of God and her saintly cousin, so it is for us – wannabe saints and homemakers and mothers and wives still seeking and surrendering. The mystery of God’s work in my soul is not meant for me alone. As sisters in Christ, we are meant to be shelter for each other’s souls[1], to be sensitive to each other’s needs and to respond in generosity. I am called to stand in awe at the beauty of your heart and to tenderly reveal that which the Lord is birthing in me. When we hasten to each other, we become more the women we are created to be.

Christ within in me seeks Christ within you. The Visitation emerging again and again.

Let yourself be loved.

[1] Oben, Freda Mary. Essays on Woman: The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Volume Two. (Washington DC: ICS Publications, 1987), IV:4.