The Mystery of the Visitation and Christ's Resurrection

Archbishop Sheen noted how the Cross cast its shadow backward over Our Blessed Lord’s entire life. I believe the same is true regarding the light of his Resurrection, and I would suggest that we see just such an instance in Jesus’ visitation to Mary and John (while within his mother’s womb). We find Jesus acting there, through the instrumentality of the Blessed Mother, the same way he will in his first post-Resurrection visit to the apostles; and these mirrored events are instructive regarding the Church’s prayer and celebration of the sacraments.

Let us begin with Jesus visitation of the apostles:

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’” (Jn 20:19-22)

Note the significant elements: Jesus’ arrival with a greeting of “Peace” (the standard Jewish greeting “Shalom”) and the imparting of the Spirit.

Don’t we find the same elements in Luke’s account of the Visitation?

“[Mary] entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! …Behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. (Lk 1:40-44)

There is of course a difference between the two events. In the visitation to Mary and John, Jesus’ bestowal of the Spirit was tied to his mother’s words. It was Christ acting for only he can impart the Spirit; but he did so from within Mary. It was as if Jesus granted a quasi-sacramental character to Mary’s greeting of “peace.” It points ahead to Jesus visit to the apostles and institution of the sacrament of reconciliation: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (Jn 20:22-23). There is a beautiful symmetry.  

But there’s another element we shouldn’t miss – and that is the reaction of Elizabeth, John, and Mary to being “filled with the Holy Spirit,” as well as the apostles’ reaction at Pentecost. John, while still in utero, “leaped for joy” and Elizabeth “exclaimed” God’s work “with a loud cry”; and the Blessed Mother sang her Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord,/ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,/ …for he who is mighty has done great things for me,/ and holy is his name./ And his mercy is on those who fear him/ from generation to generation./ He has shown strength with his arm,/…He has helped his servant Israel,/ in remembrance of his mercy,/ as he spoke to our fathers,/ to Abraham and to his posterity for ever” (Lk 1:46-51, 54-55).

We see the same reaction when the apostles and Mary were “filled” with the Spirit at Pentecost. They “began to speak in other tongues,” of “the mighty works of God…as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4,11). All of this is the action of the Spirit upon the human heart. As Christ is the source of the Spirit, so is he the author of the Church’s prayer. He inspired Mary to cry out in the Magnificat and he inspires us to cry out in the Our Father, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6).

The glory of the Resurrection and its life-changing affect upon the Church - it’s already foreshadowed Jesus' Marian visitation to Elizabeth and John.

Mary, Elizabeth, Infant Baptism & Immaculate Conception

If you were at Mass (or one of the many Protestant congregations that use the Church's cycle of readings) this Fourth Sunday of Advent, then you heard the story of Mary's visit to Elizabeth. It is an amazingly rich story, but here I wish to highlight what it has to say to us about Mary's immaculate conception and the practice of infant baptism.

Look at Elizabeth's words to Mary: "At the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy" (Luke 1:44). Let the implications of that verse sink in: The New Testament says that John the Baptist responded to grace at only six months of fetal development. John rejoiced, in utero, to be in the presence of Jesus (within the womb of Mary)! It is as the angel Gabriel had promised John's father, "He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb" (Luke 1:15).

You see, the Holy Spirit does not have to wait until a child reaches the "age of reason" to free him or her from original sin and impart supernatural life to the child's soul. This is the reason that Catholics, Orthodox, and the majority of Protestant Christians practice infant baptism. The fact that John was "filled with the Holy Spirit" and his soul able to react to Christ's presence shows us what God wants to do under the New Covenant. The only debate that you find in the early Church over infant baptism was whether, since baptism was the fulfillment of circumcision (Col. 2:11-12), infants had to wait until they were eight days old to receive it! The bishops - in perfect harmony with Luke's Gospel - said no, there was no reason to wait (Council of Carthage, 203 A.D.).

Now what, you might ask, does any of this have to do with Mary's immaculate conception? Well, this Catholic dogma states that, in lieu of Jesus's redemptive death and infinite merits, Mary was preserved, at the moment of her conception, from contracting the stain of original sin. We Catholics believe that, in baptism, both adults and infants are set free from original sin and filled with the Holy Spirit. Today's gospel reading tells us that God did this for John even before birth. The dogma of Mary's immaculate conception is absolutely consistent with all that we've seen thus far, continuing it back to the moment of conception. One may have qualms with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, but it clearly shouldn't be over God's ability to work redemption at the moment of conception!

That's how powerful our God is to save.

Mary - Jesus' Most Faithful (and Celebrated) Disciple

Our consideration of Mary’s discipleship begins with her reaction to Gabriel’s message: “I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). This is what people refer to as Mary’s fiat (Latin for “let it be”). She who received all she was from God put herself completely in His hands; she was living the life of the Spirit, the Life of her Son.

This was what the Holy Spirit moved Elizabeth to recognize during Mary’s visit to her: “when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!…blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:41-42,45). Mary’s faith, her wholehearted and unequaled cooperation with the promptings of the Spirit, is the reason for her place of honor among the People of God. This is brought out later in Luke’s Gospel when a woman cried, “Blessed is the womb that bore you!” 

“Rather, “ Jesus corrected, “blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it ” (Luke 11:27-28). He was not denying Mary’s blessedness (the Spirit had already testified to it through Elizabeth); but pointing out that Mary’s motherhood was more than a matter of flesh and blood – it was the result of her whole-hearted “yes” when God called. 

This brings us to a brief, but important, aside. Why do Catholic and Orthodox Christians refer to Mary as Theotokos, Mother of God? It has nothing to do with a belief that Mary preceded God in time– that is abso-lute nonsense! Look at Elizabeth’s words again, “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?” (Luke 1:42-43). The six other occurrences of “Lord” in Luke’s first chapter refer to God, so for a Christian reader, “mother of my Lord” and “mother of my God” could easily be viewed as synonymous. “Mother of God” became the favored version in the course of history, not because of what it said about Mary, but about Jesus. 

When heresies arose in the third and fourth centuries questioning Jesus’ divine status, confessing Mary as Mother of God was the way orthodox Christianity reaffirmed its belief in His full humanity and divinity. God the Son truly became a man in Mary’s womb. It was God the Son, who as a human being, nursed at her breasts, grew up in her home, and loved and obeyed her as mother. It was God the Son, as a little boy, who was helped by her to take His first steps and say His first words. To deny Mary the title Mother of God would be to deny the shocking reality of the incarnation, that the Word became flesh – it is to deny that God the Son died to save us from sin. If Mary was not the Mother of God the Son, then the Christian hope of salvation is null and void!

Getting back to our discussion of Mary’s discipleship though, we recognize her as a person of profound prayer. Scripture records a beautiful, prophetic hymn of praise that the Spirit put in her mouth:

My soul magnifies the Lord,and my spirit rejoices in God mySavior,for he has regarded the low estate ofhis handmaiden.For behold, henceforth all genera-tions will call me blessed (Luke 1:46-49).

Mary was a student of God’s actions, a student of her Son. We are told that she “kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, 51).

There were surprises along the way, things she did not understand. Imagine her feelings when the prophet Simeon told her, “[Your] child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). What will hap-pen to my Son? How? When? Where? What awaits me? Mary knew what it meant to walk in the darkness of faith. When Jesus stayed behind in the Temple at the age of twelve, she and Joseph spent three days searching for him. When she found him and said, “I’ve been searching for you in sor-row,” His only response was, “Why did you search for me? Did you not know I had to be in my Father’s house?” The pain that had to cause! Scripture is blunt, “[She] did not understand” (Luke 2:48-50).

We see her again in the gospels some eighteen years later, when she, Jesus, and His other disciples attended a wedding in Cana. It is here that we see Mary acting as an intercessor on behalf of others. The feast must have went on for some time when the wine ran out. What would the bride and groom serve their guests? (Hospitality was at the top of the virtue list in the ancient world.) John tells us that Jesus’ Mother became aware of the bride and groom’s predicament. Observe what she did:

…the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her,“O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” (John 2:3-5).

I am sure you remember the rest of the story. Jesus told the servants to fill six huge jars with water and take a sample to the master of the banquet. When the head waiter tasted it, it was the finest wine. John concludes the story by writing, “This, the first of His miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him” (John 2:11, NIV).

Mary did not take “no” for an answer; and Jesus, in His love for her and in response to her faith, did not turn her down. He performed His first miracle because of her intercession! I can’t help but think that He had her in mind when he told the parable of the persistent widow, telling us that we should be unceasing in our intercession (Luke 18:1-5). The gospels may be limited in the number of verses devoted to Mary, but what they tell us is astounding. Her words to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5), compresses the whole of Christian morality and disciple-ship into one sentence!

The next time we encounter Mary is at the foot of the cross. Simeon’s prophecy has been fulfilled; watching her tortured Son hang there, her soul was pierced by a sword, “that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). She did not rail at the Father, did not lash out at the soldiers overseeing the execution or the mockers passing by. She silently entrusted herself, once again, to the Father, in the Spirit. And then her Son asked something more of her:  

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, there behold your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home (John 19:26-27).

When we look at the accounts of Jesus’ death we see that everything He did at the cross was tied up with the new life He was purchasing for us – everything, including this.

We see Mary exercising this maternal care as she prayed with the disciples for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Scripture is silent on how she continued to live it out; but we can be sure she did, especially in her relationship with John the Apostle, the beloved disciple.

Upon her entrance into glory, the full sharing of Jesus’ resurrection she experienced at her assumption, her maternal care could extend directly to every beloved disciple. She could care, with a mother’s heart, for every soul that had been fused to her Son’s. Look again at what John told us in the Book of Revelation:

And a great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars …the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus (Revelation 12:1,17).

Mary has been empowered by the Spirit to act as mother, not just to Jesus, but to every person united to Him.  The chief way she shows her love is to intercede for us, just as she did for the couple at Cana. And here’s the thing - as each Christian reaches the full life of the Trinity in heaven, they too enter into intercession for their brothers and sisters still on earth.

The Woman is the Ark

"Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and heavy hail. And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery." (Rev. 11:19 - 12:2)

I do not believe it to be coincidental that John's vision moved directly from the Ark to the Woman.  Both are images of the Virgin Mary.

Now the Ark was the holiest object under the Old Covenant.  It was the golden chest that contained the Tablets of the Ten Commandments, the staff of Aaron (the first high priest), and sample of the "heavenly bread," manna, the Israelites ate in the desert.  It was God's earthly throne; the Lord was said to sit enthroned upon the cherubim atop the Ark.  When Israel's priests carried the Ark into the Jordan River it parted, just as the waters of the Red Sea had, allowing the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. After it was carried in procession for seven days around the city of Jericho, the city's walls collapsed.  

In the New Testament, when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he told her,"the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God (Lk 1:35).  "Overshadow" - it was the same term used to describe God's coming to dwell in the Tabernacle and Temple when the Ark was placed in their Holy of Holies.

It's fascinating to see how Luke developed this insight in his telling of Mary's visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth.  Allow me to set it next to the Old Testament's account of David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to his newly won capital, Jerusalem.


The Ark was a type, a prophetic symbol, of the Virgin Mary.  The original Ark contained the Ten Commandments, high priest's staff, and manna; but Mary's womb contained Jesus - the Word of the Father, our great High Priest, and the true "Bread of Life."  Mary's lap was the only throne our Lord knew during His earthly life!  The holiness of the Ark, the way it was completely set apart for the service of God (note above how Uzzah died simply from touching it), prophesied the holiness of Our Lady.

Recall how the angel Gabriel began his message to Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!...Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:28,30). “Full of grace,” or “O favored one,” in some versions of the Bible, is a translation of the Greek term “Kechari-tomene.” It refers to an absolute plentitude of grace, Mary “‛has been’ and ‘is now’ filled with divine life.”  There was never a moment of separation between she and God. This belief is what Catholics mean when they speak of her “immaculate conception.”

Mary, like all of us, had to be saved from sin.  She herself said, “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47). She was saved from sin – only the manner differs. 

Jesus' offering to the Father cuts forwards and backward in time; He is the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (1 Pet 1:19-20). His sacrifice is the source of salvation for people from the beginning of history all the way through its end (Heb 9:28; Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 3:19-20). You and I received God's grace into our souls after we had already contracted original sin; but in Mary's case, the fruits of Jesus’ victory were applied at conception, saving her from ever contracting original sin. Now, if John the Baptist could respond to the Holy Spirit while in his mother’s womb (see Lk 1:41,44 above), then how can we object to Mary receiving the Spirit but a few months earlier, at conception?  Mary had no way to earn this gift; it was granted at the instant she came into being. Nor was it a requirement to bear the sinless Jesus. It was certainly fitting, but not a requirement.  It was God’s sovereign choice, His free gift.

God's Temple - A Mobile Home?

A few months back I caught Peggy Bowes on Relevant Radio, fielding questions about The Rosary Workout.  One of the callers was concerned that Peggy's combining of the Rosary with walking and running was irreverent, that the Rosary should be prayed while one was stationary, stilled both interiorly and exteriorly.  Peggy's response, which I really enjoyed, appealed to the example of the Blessed Mother herself:  Luke's Gospel tells us how following the Annunciation "Mary rose and went with haste into the hill country of Judah" (Lk.1:39), to visit Elizabeth.  Isn't it natural to assume that Mary prayed as she trekked the over 75 miles from Nazareth to the outskirts of Jerusalem?  Of course it is.  And not only was Mary speaking to God; she was also meditating on Scripture - look at how quickly the words of the Old Testament (1 Sam.2:1-8) leapt to her lips when she met Elizabeth and burst into the Magnificat (Lk.1:46-55).  Prayer and meditation upon Scripture - that's the Rosary - and our Blessed Mother was engaged in it while on a 75 mile hike!  I ask you to keep Peggy's insights in mind as you continue to read.


After Mass this morning I remained seated, directing my gaze at the Tabernacle and praying.  "Lord, thank You for coming into me.  I can't believe that You have made me Your tabernacle too, and that You're coming with me as I visit my family this afternoon, as I head to work tomorrow . . . Lord, You've made my body a mobile Temple, a mobile home."  And then the connections started coming fast and furious:  God had dwelt with Israel for 400 years before Solomon built Him a stationary Temple of stone - and He was a God on the move.  His dwelling throughout those 400 years was a series of tents known as the Tabernacle.  When God picked up and moved, Israel packed up the Tabernacle and set off through the desert following Him.  The Ark of the Covenant, God's Old Testament throne, was even equipped with poles so that the priests could carry it.


Luke brought Tabernacle and Ark imagery together in the way he worded his narratives of the Annunciation and visitation of Mary to Elizabeth (Ex.40:34 and Lk.1:35; 2 Sam.6:2-16 and Lk.1:39-56).  Yes, in the Visitation Mary acted as Jesus' mobile home - the Tabernacle and Ark of the New Covenant.  You and I continue this awesome reality.  We bodily carry Jesus' presence into our homes, workplaces, etc.  That is our impetus in taking care of our bodies - giving them the right fuel, keeping them as agile as possible, and with sufficient strength to perform acts of love (e.g., helping your best friend move, throwing your kids up over your head).


Our Lord Jesus is of course the greatest example of this.  Tramping across Galilee, the Decapolis, and Judea, up on the mountains and out in the desert - He was a Temple on the move!  Like our Lord, the day will come when our bodies will finally yield to death, when we will find ourselves on a Cross, a bed of pain.  At that moment we will unite our agony and the failure of our bodies to His sacrifice.  (And like Him, we will one day receive them back, glorified, in the Resurrection.)  In anticipation of our Passover from the present order we daily offer our bodies in service to the Father, just as Jesus did - as Temples on the move.  We train our bodies (1 Cor.9:27) and through them offer ourselves as "living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God."  It is through the body that we Christians offer our "spiritual worship" (Rom.12:1).

Mother Mary & Father Abraham

The Rosary really is an inexhaustible source of meditation.  Last night while thinking about the Visitation, I saw how similar Mary's faith was to that of Abraham.  "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance" (Heb.11:8), and when Abraham "believed" God's promise that he and his elderly wife would one day welcome a son, "the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen.15:6).  Likewise, when Mary received the double announcement of Jesus' birth and the pregnancy of Elizabeth, "she set out and went with haste" to see her formerly barren relative (Lk.1:39); and what did Elizabeth say to her, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord!" (Lk.1:45).

When I came to the Nativity I recalled how Isaac, like Jesus, was a "child of promise" (Gal.4:28), and then in the Presentation in the Temple (the place of sacrifice), I recalled how both Abraham and Mary were asked to offer their sons.

Both Abraham and Mary saw their sons make their way up mountains, with the wood of  sacrifice upon their backs (Gen.22:6).  The great difference was that Abraham was spared the final moment of horror, but Mary was not.  

I recognize the tremendous honor of being made a child of Abraham in baptism, one of the children of promise (Gal.4:28), but an even deeper honor at being made, with Jesus, a child of Mary (Jn.19: 27).  "Hail Mary, full of grace . . ."

Corpus Christi Visitation

NO, not this kind of visitation - 
 








I was going for this one,
which is clearly far more awesome; God Himself was in Mary's womb!  And I love Elizabeth's reaction, "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?" (Lk.1:42-43)

So there's the Visitation part of my post, but where does Corpus Christi come in, the celebration of Christ's Body and Blood present in the Eucharist? Well, when you and I receive him in the Eucharist He comes into our bodies just as truly as He did the Blessed Mother's!  Take that in.  Throughout Mary's 75 mile journey to Elizabeth, she guarded and nurtured Jesus inside of her.  You and I are supposed to do the same!

And look at Elizabeth's reaction again.  Do we greet our friends at Mass with that kind of joy?!  They just received Jesus into themselves whole and entire in the Eucharist.  God Himself is dwelling inside of them!  So at Mass this weekend, when you hug those friends, try and have yourself a Corpus Christi Visitation.

Through the Grapevine

If you shrink from enlightenment, then by all means do not pray the Rosary on the Feast of All Saints.  Never have I recognized the Communion of Saints so prominently in the Joyous Mysteries.  Allow me to share:

The Annunciation - Each of us heard the Gospel from the mouth of another, and that includes Mary.  That is just striking.  Mary did not receive that holy announcement "straight" from the Lord; it was delivered through another creature.  Granted, Gabriel is a step up from you and I, but a creature nonetheless.

The Visitation - Traditionally we understand this mystery as being the visit of Mary to Elizabeth.  I would suggest however that it is the visit of Jesus to Elizabeth and John, carried there by His Mother.  Mary, the living Ark of the Covenant, carries the Presence of God.  Jesus imparted an almost sacramental quality to her words:  "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit" (Lk.1:41).


The Nativity - The announcement of His birth was entrusted to angels.  When the shepherds find Him, He is in the arms of Mary and Joseph.  But there is an even deeper beauty in this mystery - that of God taking on human lips to speak to us, making our own flesh and blood forever His own.  


The Presentation - The aged widow, Anna, announcing His identity to anyone who would listen.

The Finding - after three days of searching, Mary and Joseph discovered Him in the Temple, "sitting among the teachers" (Lk.2:46).  You and I discover Him in the New Temple, His Mystical Body made up of saints and angels, seated amidst (and within) her teachers on earth.


All of this brings Jesus' words at the Last Supper to mind:  "I am the vine, you are the branches. . .By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit" (Jn.15:5,8).  This reality allows us to understand the amazing statement He made earlier in the meal: "he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father" (Jn.14:12).  History, the very Feast of All Saints, reveals the truth of His word.  Next time you hear Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine, think of how God's Life came, and continues to come, into yours - it's through a chain of saints.