Two lowly women of Judea, living under the subjugation of the Roman Empire, meet under the most extraordinary circumstances to share the great things God has done for them. The elderly, childless Elizabeth has now conceived a son. The teenage Mary has been visited by an Angel and through the power of the Holy Spirit will bear the Messiah, God’s Son, whose reign will have no end. Sharing their stories of faith, they are lifted up in God’s grace. They know in a new way their value and dignity in the eyes of God.
Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says to Mary, “Blest are you among women, and Blest is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1, 42,). And Mary says, “My soul magnifies my God, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for the Holy One has looked with favor on me a lowly servant” (Lk 1, 46-48). On these mystical heights, Mary prophecies about God’s coming reign of justice and peace: “The powerful will be brought down from their thrones, and the lowly lifted up! The hungry will be filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty” (Lk 1, 46-53).
This visitation of Mary and Elizabeth strengthens the bonds of sisterhood for the challenges ahead. And both will suffer. Like Elizabeth and Mary, Christians through the ages have known that God’s grace is both gift and responsibility. Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart, once remarked, “What is the good to me of Mary’s being full of grace if I am not full also? What does it profit me the Father’s giving his Son birth unless I bear him too?”
The season of Advent reminds us that this ancient biblical story must become our story, with its abundant grace and its costly responsibility.
--Sara Fairbanks, OP
Image source 1: Fra Angelico, Visitation (Cortona Altarpiece, 1433-1434), https://www.wikiart.org/en/fra-angelico/visitation-1434
Image source 2: Jakob and/or Hans Strüb, The Visitation (ca. 1505), https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/strub-jakob-andor-hans/visitation
Quotation source
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