Today is the Feastday of two of the most
courageous women who have ever lived.
Today is the feast of
the inviolable dignity of motherhood.
Today is a feast of
the celebration of the beauty and the gift of womanhood – and all that it can
be.
Today, in the Church,
we rejoice and share in the joy of the whole host of heaven, at the visitation
of Our Lady to St Elizabeth.
Picture it:
A young girl and an
old woman: both of whom are offered and accept the gift of motherhood in the
most extraordinary and incredible circumstances. Who could believe that it should be God’s
will to allow these two – Mary and Elizabeth – to be subjected to the scorn and
derision of neighbours and community who may well have been scandalized at what
had happened to them. And all for the
sake of His glory?
Behold, Mary.
Until this point in
her life, she had been a precious and beloved child of her parents. They trusted her implicitly; delighted in her
goodness; were impressed by the depth of her faith and the way that her
friendship with God guided all her actions – so much so that even defined
her. It was a joy and a privilege for
Saints Joachim and Anne to be her parents.
She was truly a gift to them from God.
And now this.
A child – little more
than a child – with a plan and a dream for her life, in an instant taken from
her. What will people say? How they will talk! And when they hear how it happened … … …
Behold, Elizabeth
An old woman. Her dream all her married life; her hope and
that of Zechariah was that their love and fidelity to each other and to God,
would bear fruit in parenthood. To be
given the chance of bringing a child into the world and to share with that
child the beauty of faith. And it never
happened. Through years of disappointed
hope, they had at last accepted their fate and were now too old even to wish or
to believe.
And now this.
Old enough to be
grandparents! And to have to begin: to
be entrusted with the care of a life so new and so dependent. What will people say? How they will talk! And when they hear how it happened … … …
In the chaos and
complexity of emotions they must have experienced, they nevertheless knew and
understood the joy of the truth. God had
extended to these two women, and to Joseph and Zechariah – an invitation to
consent to His will and to be sharers in His divine joy, by accepting the
invitation and gift. They trusted in His
mercy: trusted that He was the source of the grace they would need – and the
courage and love they would need.
And the world was made new.
At the Visitation of
Mary to Elizabeth
The LORD is my strength and my song.
As we draw near to the
solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, this feast of the Visitation seems
to have an even more powerful message for us, who have been baptised and have
received the sacrament of the Eucharist.
When we were presented
to the Lord to be baptised, it was almost as though we were being offered to
the Lord as bodies that would be His very own.
This is my body, offered for you.
We were offered to the Lord to receive the gift of faith – and in so
doing we, as it were, gave ourselves to Him in order that He might be able to
claim us for Himself, and say of us ‘This is my Body.’
The wonder of our
faith is that in being claimed by God, we did not lose our identity: we did not
cease to be ourselves. Our baptism
incorporates us into the body of Christ, as ourselves, so that it is as
you and as me that we are made to be a place for Christ to call
‘home.’
Do we dare to
believe? Do we have the courage and
insight to be able to say with Mary, that ‘He who is mighty has done great
things for me?’ Dare we even imagine the
truth that we have within our grasp, the ability to say ‘yes’ to the invitation
to believe that our very presence in the world has within it the seeds of
enhancing its beauty?
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