The Visitation

“Shalom,” is the customary greeting that let’s us in to witness a meeting of two extraordinary women in Zechariah’s house; two women who are testimony to the saying that with God everything is possible. The world finds it impossible to explain how a young girl who had never been with a man and an older sterile woman passed the age of conception could both be carrying a child – but God made it possible.

The surprising and pleasant encounter of one expectant mother to another reveals a second encounter which is that of the two babies in each of their respective wombs. The voice that would eventually be crying in the wilderness (John the Baptist) has already started this crying from the womb as Elizabeth tells Mary, “For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting the child in my womb leaped for joy.” Luke 1:41

Today can also be considered to be the feast of the Magnificat and the feast of all pilgrims.

The beautiful feast of the Visitation is also a fitting end to May which is a Marian month.

Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum,
benedicta tu in mulieribus,
et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus.
Sancta Maria mater Dei,
ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.
Amen