II — MARY’S VISIT TO ELIZABETH

Presence of God. — O my Mother, Most Holy Mary, be always my model, my support, my guide.

Meditation

1 — “In those days Mary arose and went with haste into a mountainous region, to a city of Judah,” thus we read in today’s Gospel. In the refined delicacy of her charity, Mary feels others’ needs deeply, so that as soon as she perceives them, she at once sets out, spontaneous and resolute, to offer help. She has learned from the angel Gabriel that her cousin Elizabeth is about to become a mother and, without losing time, she sets out on the journey to offer her humble services. If we consider the difficulties of travel in those times, when the poor - as Mary was - had either to walk on foot over rough roads or, at best, could use some poor means encountered by chance along the way, and that, moreover, the Virgin remained three months with Elizabeth, we understand that, to perform this act of charity, Our Lady had to face not a few hardships. But she does not concern herself with these at all: charity impels her, wholly forgetful of self, because, as St. Paul says, “charity is not selfish” (1 Cor. 13:5). Think how many times perhaps, not to spare yourself a difficult journey, but only to avoid a small inconvenience, you have omitted some act of charity. Think how slow and lazy you are in offering help to your brothers. Look at Mary and see how much you need to learn from her!

Charity makes Mary not only forgetful of her hardships, but also of her dignity, the greatest dignity a pure creature has ever had. Elizabeth is elderly, but Mary is Mother of God. Elizabeth is about to bring forth a man, but Mary will bring forth the Son of God. And nonetheless, before her cousin as before the Angel, Mary continues to consider herself the humble handmaid of the Lord and nothing more. And precisely because she considers herself handmaid, she behaves as such also in practice, also with regard to neighbor. Is it not true that, if you know how to humble yourself before God, if you know how to recognize yourself imperfect in the secrecy of your heart, you then dislike appearing so before your neighbor and are ready to resent it if someone treats you as such? Is it not true that you care to assert your dignity, your culture, your capacities, the more or less honorable offices and charges entrusted to you? Your dignity is a nothing, yet you are so jealous of it. Mary’s dignity borders on the infinite, and she esteems herself and behaves as if she were the last of all creatures.

2 — “... and Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud voice: ‘Blessed are You among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?’” Interiorly enlightened by the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognizes in her young cousin the Mother of God and, moved, bursts forth in accents of praise and admiration. Mary does not protest; she listens simply because she knows well that those words of praise belong not to her, but only to the Almighty who has done great things in her. And immediately from her most humble heart all Elizabeth’s praises rebound toward God with a spontaneous and most rapid movement: “You, Elizabeth, magnify the Mother of the Lord,” says the Virgin, “but ‘my soul magnifies the Lord.’ You affirm that at my voice your child leapt for joy in your womb, but ‘my spirit exults in God my Savior’... You proclaim blessed she who has believed, but the reason for her faith and her blessedness is the gaze that divine goodness has turned upon her. Yes, ‘all generations shall call me blessed, because God has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid’” (St. Bernard). This beautiful paraphrase of the Magnificat lets us grasp vividly the movement of Mary’s spirit: she sinks into the humble confession of her own nothingness, touches, so to speak, the bottom of her lowliness; and then, the lower she has gone, the higher she rises, she lifts herself in God, not fearing to acknowledge and praise the great things He has done in her, precisely because she sees perfectly that this is his pure gift.

If before your successes, praises, and applause of creatures, if before the graces God grants you, you are still susceptible to vain complacency, it is precisely because you have not yet touched, like Mary, the bottom of your lowliness; you have not yet sufficiently sunk into consideration of your nothingness; you are not yet practically convinced of your radical insufficiency, impotence, misery, weakness. Ask Mary for the great grace of introducing you into this clear and practical knowledge of your nothingness. Do not deceive yourself: the way to reach it, for you who have inherited from Adam the germ of pride, is a hard and steep way, the way of humiliations. But Mary is Mother; and if she accompanies you, everything, with her help, will become easier and gentler.

Colloquy

“O Mary, how eminent is your humility in hastening to serve others! If it is true that he who humbles himself shall be exalted, who more than you who have humbled yourself so much? “At seeing you, Elizabeth marvels and exclaims: ‘Whence this honor to me, that the Mother of my God should come to me?’ But my marvel is even greater in seeing that you, like your Son, came not to be served but to serve... Precisely for this reason you go to Elizabeth: you, the Virgin, to the married woman; the Queen to the servant; the Mother of God to the mother of the Precursor; you who will give birth to the Son of God to her who will give birth to a servant.

“But your most profound humility in no way diminished your magnanimity; your greatness of soul in no way offended your humility. You, so little in your own eyes, were also so magnanimous in your faith, in your hope in the Most High, that you never doubted his promises and firmly believed that you would become the Mother of the Son of God.

“Humility did not make you pusillanimous, nor magnanimity haughty, but these two virtues fused perfectly in you!

“O Mary, you cannot make me share in your great privileges as Mother of God; these belong to you alone. But you want to make me share in your virtues, and for this end you set your example before me. If, therefore, sincere humility, magnanimous faith, delicate and compassionate charity are lacking in me, in what way will I be able to excuse myself?... O Mary, O Mother of mercy, you, full of grace, nourish us your poor children with your virtues!” (cf. St. Bernard).