During the month of May, we will be sharing a different passage from some of our books about Our Lady. We hope they help deepen your knowledge of and love for Mary, the Mother of God!
This passage is from the meditation for the feast we will celebrate on May 31: The Visitation. It comes from Volume 6 of In Conversation with God.
At Mary's arrival Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaims in a loud voice: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.
Elizabeth does not just call her blessed, but also explains why: it is because of the fruit of her womb, her Son who is blessed for ever. Just think of all the times we too repeat the same words whenever we say the Hail Mary: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb! Do we say them as joyfully as Elizabeth did? They can often act as an aspiration to unite us to our heavenly Mother, while we are working, or walking along the street, or whenever we see one of her images.
Mary and Jesus are always together. Jesus' most wonderful deeds are performed, as they are now, in intimate union with his Mother, the Mediatrix of all graces. This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation, says the Second Vatican Council, is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death.
Today we learn once more that each encounter with Mary implies a new discovery of Jesus. If you seek Mary, you will find Jesus. And you will learn a bit more about what is in the heart of a God who humbles himself, who makes himself accessible in the midst of the routine of ordinary life. God's great gift to mankind, whereby we can get to know and love Christ, had its beginning in Mary's faith, whose perfect fulfillment Elizabeth now openly reveals: The fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself. Mary's faith, proclaimed by Elizabeth at the Visitation, indicates how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift. The Virgin Mary, who had already pronounced her complete and unconditional fiat, presents herself at the threshold of Zachary's house as the Mother of the Son of God. This is Elizabeth's joyful discovery, and ours too; it is one we can never get used to.
