The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

e3mil.com ^ | 5/31/02

[nickcarraway]

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

5/31/02

A Reflection on the Feast Day

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. The Gospel contains the passage about John leaping with joy within His mother's womb upon hearing the voice of Mary, being in the presence of the Divine Child she was carrying. It also contains the beautiful words we have come to know as the Magnificat. Beside these, there is a little phrase which speaks volumes about the effect of God's presence in our lives: it is these words which tell us that we must be transformed by the indwelling God. Mary, we are told, "proceeded in haste" to be with Elizabeth. She forgot her own needs and went instead to serve those of another. In doing so she was the bearer of the Good News of a world redeemed.

Shouldn't that be our response? Shouldn't the presence of God in us transform our sluggishness into generous and prompt action?

Let us pray that in imitation of the Visitation of Mary we, too, must go in haste to announce that the Almighty has done great things for us and holy is His Name.

Amen! Alleluia!

Feast Days of the Virgin Mary

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, January 1 Celebrating Mary's title as Mother of God, granted in 431 BCE

Presentation of the Lord, February 2 Remembering the day Mary brought the child Jesus to the Temple

Our Lady of Lourdes, February 11 Visions appearing to Bernadette in 1858

The Annunciation of our Lord, March 25 Marking the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, May 31 Mary's visit to her sister Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16 Feast of the Carmelite nuns, who honor the Virgin

Dedication of St. Mary of the Snows, August 5 A fourth century apparition predicting snow during the summer

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, August 15 Celebrating Mary's physical ascension into heaven

Queenship of Mary, August 22 Established in 1954 by Pope Pius XII

Birth of Mary, September 8 Feast for the miraculous Immaculate Conception of Mary, who is free of Original Sin

Our Lady of Sorrows, September 15 Honoring the suffering which Mary endured for the love of her son and her God, Jesus

Our Lady of the Rosary, October 7 For the power of the devotional rosary

Presentation of Mary, November 21 Mary's dedication to the Temple at the age of three

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8 Mary's conception in the womb of St. Anne

Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12 Celebrating the Mexican visions and the Patron Saint of the Americas

Christmas, December 25 Birth of her son, the Lord Jesus Christ

[nickcarraway]

Please be respectful. Thank you.

[nickcarraway]

ping

[Siobhan]

This is my favorite Feast Day as a pro-life person. How awesome to see the Holy Spirit at work within the womb!

It is also such a marvelous Feast because it is Our Blessed Mother who brings this grace to St. Elizabeth and St. John. That is why this Feast is also truly a feast of Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Grace as well as a feast of Mary as the woman who works with the Redeemer in accomplishing His work, in other words, co-redemptress.

[Angelique]

My mother, a woman of wealth and understanding, deserted us. My mother has always been the Blessed Virgin.

[EODGUY]

My daughter has prayed the rosary and is very close to our Blessed Virgin Mary before and during her pregnancy.

If it be God's will, it would be wonderful if her child is born on this beautiful day.

EODGUY

[Salvation]

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, May 31 Mary's visit to her sister Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist

Today!

[Salvation]

Today's Readings

[Salvation]

From today's Gospel reading, Luke 1:39-56

"Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

It amazes me that all peoples of the world do not called the Virgin Mary Blessed

[Salvation]

bumping for today!

[Salvation]

Visitation Ping!

Please notify me via Freepmail if you would like to be added to or removed from the Visitation Ping list.

[cpforlife.org]

A Pro-Life Profession of Faith
and
Reflections on the Visitation account from
the Gospel according to St. Luke;
with it's teaching on the sacredness
of Life within the womb
http://cpforlife.org/teaching_against_abortion.htm

by Kevin M. Jeanfreau, Founder
Christian Patriots For Life
August 28, 2001



I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator and Author of all Life, and in Jesus Christ His Son, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
By His Passion, Death, and Resurrection- He destroyed death and restored Life.


I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.


I believe human personhood begins at conception- is sacred and inviolable until natural death.


I believe each human person is made in the image and likeness of God, with intellect and will; that each person is of infinite value, is precious in God's eyes and so must be in mine.


I believe that each person from the moment of conception is infinitely loved and cared for by God each moment of their lives, that if they were the only person to ever exist, Jesus would die on the cross so they may have eternal Life.


I believe that at the Visitation, when John leaped for joy at the presence of the Lord Jesus; the unborn Christ taught, and the unborn Baptist proclaimed, the sacred inviolability of Life in the womb.


I believe that "whatsoever you do to the least of these you do unto Me", applies most especially to the unborn who are the unseen, just as the unborn Son of God was until His Nativity.


I believe that God judges nations and peoples by how they treat the weakest and most defenseless.


I believe that if I want the leaders of tomorrow to be strong in their Pro-Life convictions,
I must fully educate them on the sacredness of Life from their earliest days through to adulthood.


I believe that through God's grace and infinite Mercy, our world can one day be a people of Life.


Amen



About this Creed:


While it is self explanatory, some parts can be expounded upon.


People say that Jesus never taught about the sacredness of Life in the womb. These need to reread and pray over the first chapter of Luke. Not only did Jesus teach that life in the womb is sacred- HE TAUGHT THIS TRUTH FROM THE WOMB!


There are many places in scripture that teach about the sacredness of life within the womb, but perhaps none more beautifully than Luke's account of the Visitation.


Scholars believe Jesus was perhaps a couple of weeks along from conception and John the Baptist about Six months from conception at the Visitation.


Tertullian who lived 160-240 was one of the early Church Fathers. He teaches on the Visitation in his work De A ninta 26:4 "They [John and Jesus] were both alive while still in the womb. Elizabeth rejoiced as the infant leaped in her womb; Mary glorifies the Lord because Christ within inspired her. Each mother recognizes her child and is known by her child who is alive, being not merely souls but also spirits."


Consider this passage from The Gospel of Life by Pope John Paul II Section 45:
"The New Testament revelation confirms the indisputable recognition of the value of life from its very beginning. The exaltation of fruitfulness and the eager expectation of life resound in the words with which Elizabeth rejoices in her pregnancy: "The Lord has looked on me... to take away my reproach among men" (Lk 1:25). And even more so, the value of the person from the moment of conception is celebrated in the meeting between the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, and between the two children whom they are carrying in the womb. It is precisely the children who reveal the advent of the Messianic age: In their meeting, the redemptive power of the presence of the Son of God among men first becomes operative. As Saint Ambrose writes: "The arrival of Mary and the blessings of the Lord's presence are also speedily declared... Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice; but John was the first to experience grace. She heard according to the order of nature; he leaped because of the mystery. She recognized the arrival of Mary; he the arrival of the Lord. The woman recognized the woman's arrival; the child, that of the Child. The women speak of grace; the babies make it effective from within to the advantage of their mothers who, by a double miracle, prophesy under the inspiration of their children. The infant leaped, the mother was filled with the Spirit. The mother was not filled before the son, but after the son was filled with the Holy Spirit, he filled his mother too".[36]

Consider also this excerpt from footnote #60 of the same work:
"So too the Evangelist Luke in the magnificent episode of the meeting of the two mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, and their two sons, John the Baptist and Jesus, still hidden in their mothers' wombs (cf. 1:39-45) emphasizes how even before their birth the two little ones are able to communicate: The child recognizes the coming of the Child and leaps for joy."



Homily by Fr. James Gilhooley Fr. Gilhooley homilies (cycle C) available on CD. Send $10 to him at: 112 Patchett Way, Montgomery, NY 12549. 24 DEC 2000 Fourth Sunday of Advent -
Cycle C Luke 1:39-45 Father Gihooley states "Jesus has clearly taught us that abortion is wrong, He declares, by the decisive facts of His early days in Mary's womb."



Both of these unborn were manifesting their Personhood- their unique individual identity.


Pro-choicers say that the unborn are of the human species but are not "persons", and yet clearly from all Christian teaching the Unborn Person in the womb of Mary was none other than the Second Person of the Trinity. God became man, took on Himself the flesh of the Virgin. He became like us in all things but sin.


The paragraph from this creed on the Visitation basically distills several theological dogmas with this passage from Luke's Gospel:
All truth comes from the Father - through the Son - in the Spirit.
The Baptist is the precursor of the One Who is the Truth.


These two unborn children obviously communicated on some level. By Grace John knew Who was visiting he and his mother. Two distinct individuals-- Mary, Elizabeth's kinswoman and her unborn Son, Jesus the Messiah.


I believe that along with all the other teachings on the Visitation, one can see a particular lesson between the two Unborn of the passage. John by his leaping for joy at the recognition of the Unborn Christ through the Holy Spirit, relayed this truth to his mother. Luke 1: 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the voice of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.


In all truth it can be said that the Baptist already was making known the coming of the Messiah! This unborn person was already living out his calling. John the Baptist who years later would be heard to cry out "Behold the Lamb of God" John 1:29 was already crying out Behold the Lamb of God-- silently, though both he and the Lamb were yet unborn.


By the Spirit John knew before his mother that Mary was pregnant with the Savior of the world. Elizabeth is acknowledging that Mary is carrying "my Lord." There can be no doubt whatsoever that Elizabeth knew the Lord was a person even if unborn.


What better place could Jesus have taught the truth of the sacredness of life in the womb than from inside the womb Himself. And how profound it is that the first person He would teach was also in the womb.


Here it must be remembered that the Lord taught in many different ways: With parables, from the scriptures, and through events around Him. But His greatest teachings were the ones where He taught not with words but by example- preeminently His holy Passion. So too the Unborn Christ most fittingly taught the sacredness of life within the womb not with words but by His own Sacred Life within the womb--which if prayerfully studied teaches volumes.


Regarding the second to last section of this creed: "... educate them on the sacredness of Life from their earliest schooling through to adulthood." is fully spelled out at http://www.cpforlife.org

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Mary, we are told, "proceeded in haste" to be with Elizabeth. She forgot her own needs and went instead to serve those of another. In doing so she was the bearer of the Good News of a world redeemed.

She was the first Evangelist and she continues to this day.

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

Excellent. Thank you.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks cpforlife.

Bump!

[Coleus]

Great Job!

FYI
An Old Testament Litany for Life
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/liturgy/litany.htm
Respect Life Program
http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/publicat/respectl.htm
Living the Gospel of Life:
A Challenge to American Catholics
http://www.nccbuscc.org/prolife/gospel.htm
Pro-Life Activities
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/index.htm
Church Documents
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/tdocs/index.htm
Respect Life Program
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/index.htm
John Paul II and the Gospel of Life
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/stlouis.htm
Respect Life Program 1999-2000
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/9900rlp.htm
Canon Law and Abortion
http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/canonl.htm

[fatima]

Thanks Salvation,Happy Feast day Blessed Mother.

[fatima]

Luke 1:39-49 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord." And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name."

[madprof98]

Today was a busy day at the abortion clinic, and most of the patrons seemed resolute in their purpose (or too high on drugs to know exactly where they were). Near the end of the vigil, though, one couple paused, argued briefly in the parking lot, and then decided to leave--with some pro-life literature in hand. I had forgotten it was the Feast of the Visitation til I came home and glanced at the calendar.

[Gophack]

My daughter was born on March 25, 2003 -- three weeks early. We had already planned on naming her Mary. It wasn't until I got home from the hospital that I realized she was born on the Feast of the Annunciation!

[Salvation]

Beautiful.