#feastofthevisitation

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[anastpaul]

The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – 31 May

As we say goodbye to Mary’s Month of May, we celebrate today the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.   This feast celebrates the visit of Mary, the Mother of God, with the child Jesus in her womb, to her cousin Elizabeth.   The visit took place when Elizabeth was herself, six months’ pregnant, with the forerunner of Christ, Saint John the Baptist.   At the Annunciation of the Lord, the angel Gabriel, in response to Mary’s question “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” (Luke 1:34 ), had told her that “thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:36-27).The evidence of her cousin’s own near-miraculous conception had called forth Mary’s fiat:  “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.”   It is thus appropriate, that the very next action of the Blessed Virgin, that Saint Luke the Evangelist records, is Mary’s “making haste” to visit her cousin.

The Significance of the Visitation Arriving at the house of Zachariah and Elizabeth, Mary greets her cousin and something wonderful happens:  John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb (Luke 1:41).   As the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 puts it in its entry on the Visitation, the Virgin Mary’s “presence and much more the presence of the Divine Child in her womb, according to the will of God, was to be the source of very great graces to the Blessed John, Christ’s Forerunner.”The Cleansing of John the Baptist From Original Sin

John’s leap was no ordinary movement of an unborn child, for as Elizabeth tells Mary, “as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1:44).   The joy of John the Baptist, the Church has held from the time of the early Church Fathers, came from his cleansing at that moment of Original Sin, in accordance with the angel Gabriel’s prophecy to Zachariah, before John’s conception, that “he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).   As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes in its entry on St John the Baptist, “as the presence of any sin whatever is incompatible with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul, it follows that at this moment John was cleansed from the stain of original sin.” The Origin of Two Great Catholic Prayers.

Elizabeth, too, is filled with joy and cries out in words that would become part of the chief Marian prayer, the Hail Mary:  “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.”   Elizabeth then acknowledges her cousin Mary as “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:42-43).   Mary responds with the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), a canticle or biblical hymn that has become an essential part of the Church’s evening prayer (vespers). It is a beautiful hymn of thanksgiving, glorifying God for choosing her to be the mother of His Son, as well as for His mercy “from generation until generations, to them that fear Him.”The History of the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Visitation is mentioned only in Luke’s Gospel and Luke tells us that Mary stayed with her cousin about three months.   The angel Gabriel, as we have seen, told Mary at the Annunciation that Elizabeth was six months pregnant and Luke seems to indicate that the Blessed Virgin departed for her cousin’s home very soon after the Annunciation.

While many Marian feasts are among the first feasts to have been celebrated universally by the Church, East and West, the celebration of the Visitation, even though it is found in Luke’s Gospel, is a relatively late development.   It was championed by Saint Bonaventure and adopted by the Franciscans in 1263.   When it was extended to the universal Church by Pope Urban VI in 1389, the date of the feast was set as July 2, the day after the octave (eighth) day of the feast of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist.  

The idea was to tie the celebration of the Visitation, at which Saint John had been cleansed of Original Sin, to the celebration of his birth, even though the placement of the feast in the liturgical calendar was out of sync with the account given by Luke.   In other words, symbolism, rather than chronology, was the deciding factor in choosing when to commemorate this important event.For close to six centuries, the Visitation was celebrated on July 2, but with his revision of the Roman calendar in 1969, Pope Paul VI moved the celebration of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the last day of the Marian month of May so that it would fall between the feasts of the Annunciation and the Birth of Saint John the Baptist—a time when Luke tells us that Mary would certainly have been with Elizabeth, taking care of her cousin in her time of need.

(via Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Memorials of the Saints - 31 May)

[anastpaul]

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – 31 May 

 The feast of the Visitation recalls to us the following great truths and events:  The visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth shortly after the Annunciation;  the cleansing of John the Baptist from original sin in the womb of his mother at the words of Our Lady’s greeting;  Elizabeth’s proclaiming of Mary—under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost—as Mother of God and “blessed among women”;  Mary’s singing of the sublime hymn, Magnificat (“My soul doth magnify the Lord”) which has become a part of the daily official prayer of the Church.   The Visitation is frequently depicted in art and was the central mystery of St. Francis de Sales’ devotions.

The Mass of today salutes her who in her womb bore the King of heaven and earth, the Creator of the world, the Son of the Eternal Father, the Sun of Justice.   It narrates the cleansing of John from original sin in his mother’s womb.   Hearing herself addressed by the most lofty title of “Mother of the Lord” and realizing what grace her visit had conferred on John, Mary broke out in that sublime canticle of praise proclaiming prophetically that henceforth she would be venerated down through the centuries:

“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me, and holy is His name” (Lk. 1:46).

This feast is of medieval origin, it was kept by the Franciscan Order before 1263 and soon its observance spread throughout the entire Church.   Previously it was celebrated on July 2.   Now it is celebrated between the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord and the birth of St. John the Baptist, in conformity with the Gospel accounts.   Some places appropriately observe a celebration of the reality and sanctity of human life in the womb.   The liturgical colour is white.

The Visitation And Mary rising up in those days went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda. [Lk. 1:39]

How lyrical that is, the opening sentence of St. Luke’s description of the Visitation. We can feel the rush of warmth and kindness, the sudden urgency of love that sent that girl hurrying over the hills. “Those days” in which she rose on that impulse were the days in which Christ was being formed in her, the impulse was His impulse.   Many women, if they were expecting a child, would refuse to hurry over the hills on a visit of pure kindness.  They would say they had a duty to themselves and to their unborn child which came before anything or anyone else.

The Mother of God considered no such thing. Elizabeth was going to have a child, too and although Mary’s own child was God, she could not forget Elizabeth’s need—almost incredible to us, but characteristic of her.   She greeted her cousin Elizabeth and at the sound of her voice, John quickened in his mother’s womb and leapt for joy.

I am come, said Christ, that they may have life and may have it more abundantly. [Jn. 10, 10]    Even before He was born His presence gave life.

With what piercing shoots of joy does this story of Christ unfold!   First the conception of a child in a child’s heart and then this first salutation, an infant leaping for joy in his mother’s womb, knowing the hidden Christ and leaping into life.

How did Elizabeth herself know what had happened to Our Lady?  What made her realize that this little cousin who was so familiar to her was the mother of her God?   She knew it by the child within herself, by the quickening into life which was a leap of joy.

If we practice this contemplation taught and shown to us by Our Lady, we will find that our experience is like hers.  If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected, because we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it He is forming Himself;  if we go with eager wills, “in haste,” to wherever our circumstances compel us because we believe that He desires to be in that place, we shall find that we are driven more and more to act on the impulse of His love.

And the answer we shall get from others to those impulses will be an awakening into life  or the leap into joy of the already wakened life within them.  Excerpted from The Reed of God, Caryll Houselander

[anastpaul]

Thought for the Day – 31 May

Mary, Mother of God, your love is strikingly shown forth in this beautiful Feast of the Visitation.   When you learned from the angel that your cousin Elizabeth was with child and needed your help, you set out to care for her. Neither the long absence from home, nor the inconvenience of a difficult and dangerous journey to the mountain country, kept you from making this mission of love. You thought only of Elizabeth and the assistance you could bring to her. You hastened to be of service.   You lovingly served her until you saw her happily delivered of the child of promise with which God had blessed her. Help me to strive to imitate your wonderful charity by aiding those who are in need, by sympathising with those who are afflicted, by opening my heart and applying my hands to relieve every form of distress. Give me love like yours! Teach me that the test of my following of your Divine Son is practical charity! One of the invocations in Mary’s litany is “Ark of the Covenant.” Like the Ark of the Covenant of old, Mary brings God’s presence into the lives of other people. As David danced before the Ark, John the Baptist leaps for joy. As the Ark helped to unite the 12 tribes of Israel by being placed in David’s capital, so Mary has the power to unite all Christians in her son. Like you, teach me too acclaim and seek the glory of God and sing with you:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour for He has looked with favour on His lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name.

He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation. He has shown the strength of His arm, He has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of His servant Israel for He remembered His promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.

(Lk 1:46-55)

(via AnaStpaul – Breathing Catholic)

[anastpaul]

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[anastpaul]

Blessed Feast of the Visitation!