Visitation

Intro

Visitations are fun aren’t they? You aren’t in control of the situation, the guest has the honors and it truly is an honor to receive someone, but to a point. You defer to them, seek to make them comfortable, it is a time when you are stretched because you also have your normal stuff to do.

My friend, Fr. Charles, says, “All these different people are always coming to the abbey, they know me and want to take me out, and every day it seems there is someone different from my past or present ministry that wants to enjoy my time, so I’m just eating and entertaining people, its fun but tiring and I’m getting fat!”

“But would you get fat for the Lord?” I asked. “There’s a homily in there Fr. Ian” he replied.

Mary’s Vocation

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he offered her God’s will. He dialogued with her, but didn’t force Mary into the Vocation, he offered it to her freely. It is always wrong to coerce someone into doing what you want them to do, especially a minor, if she was indeed one. So God did not coerce her, but in her grace she was perfectly free, and with that freedom she chose to do God’s will, opposite Satan. So our vocations are unfolding events, they are not static, it is a movement, an understanding with ourselves and God.

So, what happened when she became pregnant? Well, conception occurred on March 25, the Annunciation. The Visitation occurs on May 31, 67 days after the pregnancy began. Mary made haste. Thus we have a couple options at least here. 1) She jumped into action, found out she was pregnant, heard about Elizabeth and went to her home and stayed there for months 7, 8, & 9 of the pregnancy. OR 2) Mary received God into her body and conceived by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps here, she held onto this and prayed for 2 months praying and pondering what was happening to her and with her. [All Jewish girls hoped to be the mother of the Messiah, Mary is living this desire, alone with God.]

The walk is 100 miles which is a 6-10 day journey. So let’s say she gets to Elizabeth’s house during or at the end of month 8 and stays with her for month nine and helps her through the first couple months after childbirth. This is nice to me. Thus, in a non static vocation, Mary receives, is in dialogue with God and then He says, “Go now, make haste.” She wasn’t goofing around, but perhaps there is a time to remain calm in reception, and when it is time to move, to go with haste. Why not?!

Mary is the Ark

Commonly the ark of the covenant is a type of Mary. Mary carries Jesus who is the Law, the High Priest, and the Bread of Life. In 2 Samuel, David marches with the ark towards Jerusalem dancing in front of the Ark until Uzzah dies. Then the ark goes to Obed Edom where it stays for 3 months, just like Mary. I wondered if the son of David, Joseph, danced in front of Mary on the way?! At least John the Baptist did! But I can’t imagine the Virgin going on this trek alone through the dangerous hill country (the same territory David and the ark walked) without the Son of David, Joseph. I love imagining Joseph, Mary, and the unborn Christ walking together, so they make haste together, evocative of Songs 1:4 “Draw me after you, let us run!”

Elizabeth and Zechariah are of the upper class

Elizabeth and Zechariah are thought to have lived in Ein Karem, 5 miles outside of Jerusalem. John Bergsma says that this is like the Connecticut of Judea while Nazareth (hill country) is like the hillbilly territory, the West Virginia of Israel/Judea! ha! How/Why then would this noble woman, a wife of a priest, be so deferential to Mary? a lowly self described hand maiden? 1) She is filled by the Holy Spirit 2) This allows her to know who Mary really is “The mother of my Lord...” She provides us with an example of how to treat Mary.

Elizabeth, acting prophetically, gives birth to the top prophet, JBap, which affirms that spiritual gifts can be passed down genetically (I believe that virtues and sins get passed down from parents to children).

She notices that Mary’s words are full of the Spirit. John the Baptist sure noticed and reminds us how sweet Mary’s words are and how pleasing to the Father they are, “Song 2:14 “My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cliff, Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” and her Magnificat sure is the “song of the turtledove in the land.”

Tying this in with the first reading from Zephaniah, Mary is the personification of Daughter Zion, Daughter Jerusalem, and the personification of the Church, of which you nuns, Carmelites, are in imitation of Mary, personifying too the Church. And when the Lord hears her song he “sings joyfully” in return.

She fulfills what was prophesied by Joel and picked up by Peter in Acts 2/3, “The Spirit will be poured out on your sons and daughters.” And we can see this outpouring occurring all around Christ, and ultimately at Pentecost which we just celebrated, we can see it too in Simeon the priest at the Presentation of Christ on Feb. 2.

Jbap is a priest’s son and a prophet and was put under the Nazarite vow early on. It wasn’t the easiest life. But even this highclass, privileged and blessed son was asked by God to live an austere life, a reminder to us not to get too comfortable in this life, for if we do, it could mean spiritual death! We must seek a poverty to be poor with the poor Christ.

Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense. When is the next time we see a choosing of a priest by lots in Luke’s writings? (When Peter chooses Matthias in Acts 1/2, interesting huh?!). And he gets struck mute for the pregnancy of Elizabeth. Why? As punishment? Sure, and because it was good for him and for us. Elizabeth too, after conceiving went into seclusion for 5 months (Lk 1:24). We need to spend more time in silence, listening, pondering, praying with God. But still, why was he struck and not Mary?

Because Mary must have asked differently. “How can this be? I don’t know man.” Akin to saying, “Would you like a cigarette?” “No thank you, I don’t smoke.” As in, “Its not something that I do, I’ve taken a vow, I don’t know men, even my husband, that’s not the kind of arrangement we have.”

So in this, since she is perpetually a virgin as allowed in Numbers 30, as Joseph was a just man, knowing what happened to Uzzah, knowing that he was married and at this point only betrothed to Mary, the perpetual and committed virgin, he could not have thought that she ‘cheated on him,’ but rather preferred to step aside and let God and Mary and Jesus do their thing. God corrected him.

Zechariah on the other hand asked how something could be done that had already happened before, other old women in Scripture had trouble conceiving (ie Sarah, Rebekkah?, Rachael [“God has removed my disgrace” repeated by Elizabeth], & Hannah). A virgin had never conceived while remaining a virgin, before, during, and after. Mary, was full of grace and thus asked differently.

Great Mystery

Lastly, this is to tell us that Jesus is God from the womb, the Lord. He wasn’t made the Lord later, like at baptism, “Adopted,” by the Father, He is eternally the Son. And what the Son does, as God, is eternal, his actions are eternal. And thus, when he is in the womb of Mary, she always carries Him, and so, as we go to her and she visits us, she brings Christ with her. She does nothing on her own, and only seeks to carry out, with haste, the will of the Father, led by the Spirit with her Son. So the mystery is begging Mary to bring Christ to us and speak her words, scented by the holy Spirit to us and our homes!