![]() She goes down on one knee before her, a mark of respect for the mother of God. In the distance is a city on a river – presumably Nazareth, although the actual town is not close to a river – and on the right is a hilltop fortress, intended to be Juda.Įlizabeth, dressed in red and with a rosary at her belt, has clearly hurried out to meet Mary. The Bible describes how Mary went from Nazareth to Juda, where Elizabeth lived. ![]() The picture illustrates the meeting as described in the Gospel of Luke, though some details are inventions. We pray to have the trust in God that we need to travel whatever road we must take – just as Mary did.Īnd we pray, too, that one day our journeying will lead us to meet her face to face – in that place prepared for her, that destination that became her home, and where she waits for us, with a mother’s love and a mother’s hope.The Virgin Mary – the figure in blue – has gone to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who in spite of her age had miraculously become pregnant. But we ask Mary to help guide us on our way. All of us are traveling to places we may not understand, to destinations we cannot see. We can only imagine what other travels she took in the course of her life … but we can’t forget one in particular, the most difficult of all, as she followed her son on HIS journey to Calvary… With that, Mary’s great acclamation becomes the Church’s. It is prayed every evening in the Liturgy of the Hours by millions around the world. What follows, the Magnificat, is Mary’s great gift to scripture, one of its most beautiful prayers. “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” In today’s gospel, we see her, literally, bringing Jesus to another, as she carries him in her womb and goes to her cousin and speaks the words any missionary might pronounce – words which are the very essence of The Good News, and the beginning of all belief: Like those apostles, Mary was a missionary – the first missionary, a woman who traveled and carried Christ to the world. Mary, as the first disciple, in many ways prefigures all the disciples who will follow – those who traveled, mostly on foot, throughout the world to spread the gospel and proclaim the good news. Finding him, she continues her travels, bringing him home to Nazareth. We meet her again, traveling to Jerusalem, where her son goes missing – and we follow her as she goes in search of him. She is restless, rarely sitting still or staying in one place.Īfter this journey to see Elizabeth, we next find Mary embarking on an arduous trip, while pregnant, to Bethlehem.Īfter giving birth, she and her small family are on the move again, fleeing to Egypt, to escape death. She is a woman on a continual journey - constantly, by necessity, on the move. This is true.īut this morning, I’d like to ask you to think of her a little differently. We tend to think of the Blessed Mother as a quiet, serene figure – a woman of few words, but blessed with tremendous faith, and boundless trust. Not only does Mary take this journey to a town of Judah but, with this event, the great journey of her LIFE begins – an adventure that will not end until her final journey, to heaven, on the feast we celebrate today, the Assumption. ![]() And rather than keeping this news to herself, or wondering how she will cope, she sets out on a journey, to visit her cousin, Elizabeth - and we have this momentous scene that follows, The Visitation. She has just been told that she is to be the Mother of God. But what Mary does here is hardly a vacation. Millions of us are headed to the beach or the mountains, National Parks or Disney World. This time of year, I think, a lot of us can appreciate the idea of taking a trip. “Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste…” For the Feast of the Visitation, here’s a portion of my homily from 2007 from the Solemnity of the Assumption, which used the same gospel reading.
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