The Gospel for the feast of the visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is taken from Luke 1, chapter 39 to the 56th verse. Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled. And Mary said, my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. For this day all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm. He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He’s cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He’s filled the hungry with good things. The rich he has sent empty away. He has come to the help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.
Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. Mary represents so many things, but one of the things I’d like you to focus on is she is the forerunner, the one who set the tone for the miracle that would happen to all of us that happened to her. That in some mysterious way God would be born in our hearts. The incarnation is the heart of the teaching of Jesus. Mary said yes when this miracle was proposed to her. Yet it meant that she would be in a situation that would be dangerous to her well being.
We have to have the same courage to accept the truth that when God enters into you and into me, there will be changes, there will be a new way of seeing the world. And that gift, like the gift that Mary received, has to be accepted and believed in. Mary’s belief is what makes her so important. Believed in something that couldn’t happen. And that’s what we need to believe in, that God is in us. Foreign Closing Prayer when you entered the world through Mary, you changed the world.
When you enter into us, you empower us to change the world, help us to believe in this gift and believe in its ability to accomplish what it’s sent to accomplish, to bring people out of darkness into the light, out of slavery, into freedom, out of death, into life. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen.
