1) Opening prayer
Lord our God, loving Father,
Mary went with haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth in her hour of need.
May we too rejoice in the Lord
when we can hurry to see people
to bring them the Lord
as we to share in their needs and their joys.
With Mary, may we become
a blessing to them.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
2) Gospel Reading
- Luke 1,39-56
Mary set out at that time and went as quickly as she
could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah's house
and greeted Elizabeth.
Now it happened that as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's
greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy
Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, 'Of all women you are the most blessed,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit
from the mother of my Lord? Look, the moment your greeting reached my ears, the
child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the
promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.'
And Mary said:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the
Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; because he has looked upon the humiliation of his
servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his
name, and his faithful love extends age after age to those who
fear him.
He has used the power of his arm, he has routed the
arrogant of heart.
He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised
high the lowly.He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his faithful love
-according to the promise he made to our ancestors -- of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.
Mary stayed with her some three months and then went
home.
• Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin, and
the Gospel narrates the visit of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. When Luke speaks
of Mary, he thinks of the communities of his time which lived dispersed in the
cities of the Roman Empire and offers to them, Mary as a model of how they
should relate to the Word of God. Once, hearing Jesus speak about God, a woman
in the crowd exclaimed: “Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that
fed you”, praising the mother of Jesus. Immediately Jesus answered: “More
blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Lk 11, 27-28).
Mary is the model of the faithful community which knows how to live and
practice the Word of God. In describing the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, he
teaches how the communities should act in order to transform the visit of God
into service of the brother and sisters.
• The episode of the visit of Mary to Elizabeth also
shows another typical aspect of Luke. All the words and the attitudes,
especially the Canticle of Mary, form a great celebration of praise. It seems
to be a description of a solemn Liturgy. Thus, Luke evokes the liturgical and
celebrative environment, in which Jesus was formed and in which the communities
should live their own faith.
• Luke 1, 39-40: Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
Luke stresses the haste with which Mary responds to the demands of the Word of
God. The Angel spoke to her about the pregnancy of Elizabeth and Mary,
immediately, rises in order to verify what the Angel had announced, she goes
out of the house to help a person in need. From Nazareth to the mountain of
Judah there are about 100 kilometres! There were no buses or trains!
• Luke 1, 41-44: The greeting of Elizabeth. Elizabeth represents
the Old Testament which ends. Mary, the New One which is beginning. The Old
Testament welcomes, accepts the New One with gratitude and trust, recognizing
in it the gratuitous gift of God which comes to realize and to complete
whatever expectation people had. In the encounter of the two women, is
manifested the gift of the Spirit which makes the child jump with joy in
Elizabeth’s womb. The Good News of God reveals his presence in one of the most
common things of human life: two housewives who exchange the visit to help one
another. A visit, joy, pregnancy, children, reciprocal help, house, family:
Luke wants to make the communities (and all of us) understand and discover the
presence of the Kingdom. The words of Elizabeth, up until now, form part of the
best known and most recited Psalm in the world, which is the Hail Mary.
• Luke 1, 45: The praise which Elizabeth makes of Mary.
“Blessed is she who believed that the promise made by the Lord would be
fulfilled”. This is Luke’s advice to the communities: to believe in the Word of
God, because it has the force to realize what it says. It is a creative Word.
It generates a new life in the womb of a virgin, in the womb of the poor and
abandoned people who accept it with faith.
• Luke 1, 46-56: The canticle of Mary. Most probably,
this canticle was already known and sung in the Communities. It teaches how it
should be prayed and sung. Luke 1, 46-56: Mary begins proclaiming the change
which has come about in her life under the loving look of God, full of mercy.
This is why she sings joyfully: “My spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour”. Luke
1, 51-53: she sings the fidelity of God toward his people and proclaims the
change which the arm of Yahweh is bringing about in behalf of the poor and the
hungry. The expression “arm of God” recalls the liberation of the Exodus. It is
this saving force of God which gives life to the change: he has routed the
arrogant of heart (1, 51), he has pulled down princes from their thrones and
raised high the lowly (1, 52), he has sent the rich away empty, and has filled
the starving with good things (1, 53). Luke 1, 54-55: at the end, she recalls
that all that is the expression of God’s mercy toward his people and an
expression of his fidelity to the promises made to Abraham. The Good News is
not a response to the observance of the Law, but the expression of the goodness
and the fidelity of God to the promises made. That is what Paul taught in the
letters to the Galatians and to the Romans.
The second Book of Samuel tells the story of the Ark of
the Covenant. David wants to put in his own house, but he is frightened and
says: “How can the Ark of Yahweh come to be with me?” (2 S 6, 9). Then David
ordered that the Ark be placed in the house of Obed-Edom. And the Ark of Yahweh
remained three months in the house of Obed-Edom, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom
and his whole family” (2 S 6, 11). Mary, waiting for Jesus, is like the Ark of
the Covenant which, in the Old Testament, visited the houses of the persons
granting benefits. She goes to Elizabeth’s house and remained there three
months. And while she is in Elizabeth’s house, the whole family is blessed by
God. The community should be like the New Ark of the Covenant. Visiting the
house of the persons, it should take benefits and the grace of God to the
people.
4) Personal questions
• What prevents us from discovering and living the joy of
God’s presence in our life?
• Where and how does the joy of the presence of God take
place today in my life and in that of the community?
5) Concluding Prayer
Bless the Lord, my soul, from the depths of my being,
his holy name;bless Yahweh, my soul,
never forget all his acts of kindness. (Ps 103,1-2)
Source: Order of Carmelites
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