Readings:
Song of Songs 2:8-14
Luke 1:39-45
Reflection:
As a teacher, one of the first religious songs I taught my children was “The Visit”, (The Medical Missionary Sisters from the Album “Woman Song.” Worth listening to on you tube –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj7cboPSB-w . It has stayed with me for over 40 years and speaks to today’s Gospel.
Many years later I found myself teaching at St Mary’s Erskineville Here, liturgical space was flanked by nine-metre-high windows in Skye blue led light, the centre of each depicting a symbol and title attributed to Mary. Ark of the Covenant was one – Mary became the living Ark, carrying the new covenant – the hope of humankind and of all creation.
Since 1994, I have travelled to the Holy land on several occasions. Here I visited Ein Karem – Hebrew for Spring of the vineyard. This is the birthplace of John the Baptist and the context of today’s gospel. It is in the Judean countryside southwest of Jerusalem on the way to Bethlehem. The Church of St. John the Baptist, built over a cave said to be his birthplace, and also Mary’s Spring, where Mary is believed to have quenched her thirst after a long arduous trip to visit her cousin Elizabeth.
This narrative demonstrates the Spirit of God at work transforming the social structures of the times in choosing two would be shamed women to be key figures in His plan for salvation. Mary pregnant out of wedlock and Elizabeth barren without child in old age. In this vignette the women shine, when so often they are overlooked and ignored in the society of the times.
Mary greets Elizabeth and there is silence from her as the child in her womb leaps for joy as the lyrics of the song say, “There leaped a little child in the ancient womb. And there leaped a little hope in every ancient tomb.”
From within Elizabeth’s womb, John acknowledges Mary’s greeting and the One she is carrying. John’s reaction to Mary’s voice is the first heralding of Christ.
Elizabeth, assumes the role of prophet – Mary, not visibly pregnant, yet Elizabeth refers to her as “mother of my Lord”. The spirit at work transforming their lives, pointing to what will come.
Elizabeth blesses Mary for her status as the mother of Jesus and for her trust in God’s promise – “blessed … among women” and proclaims that the fruit of Mary’s womb as “blessed!”
Mary is blessed, honoured and favoured rather than shamed for having this baby….” all generations will call you blessed”. Mary invites these accolades upon her because she believes God will deliver on his promise.
It is interesting to note, that the situation of both women would warrant them being ostracised, shamed and judged.
The social mores of the time dictated that the primary purpose of a women’s life was to bear children. So as an elderly infertile wife, Elizabeth had endured a lifetime of being treated as a failure. Her response to her miraculous pregnancy emphasizes that God’s grace has reversed her social status.
In greeting Mary with honour, Elizabeth overturns social expectations. Life experience has taught Elizabeth the price of being shamed and excluded. “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people” (Luke 1:25). At long last, in her old age, she is an honourable married woman, pregnant with her Zachariah ’s son.
In welcoming Mary Elizabeth practices the same kind of inclusive love that Jesus would show to outcasts. She sees beyond the shamefulness of Mary’s situation to the reality of God’s love at work even among those whom society rejects and excludes.
In many ways this is such a personally familiar gospel story for all of us. What happens when we receive life-changing or astonishing or unexpected news? Most often we do what Mary did, we hurry off to someone whom we respect, trust and love to share the news, eager, joyful or shattered depending on the news..
A ‘visitation’ …. Any visitation, as this one that we are celebrating today, sees the meeting of two women in mutual awe. That mutual awe breaks into song. In any visitation. there is mutual awe at our news – and depending on the news – that mutual awe breaks into song or lament.
Mary seeks the community of friendship with her older cousin Elizabeth. In her book “For Everything a Season”, Joan Chittister talks about scripture being full of the coming together of people – and she says: “people – modest, ordinary, confused, and very unlike people, find strength in one another to do what is beyond their simple selves. They meet and embrace. They meet and their soul’s touch. They meet and feel strongly. Then because of that embrace and those feelings, the world changes on the spot.”
Our need and seeking of community, is something that we all understand. There we find a kindred spirit or kindred spirits to understand us and we them in the realm of our inward journeying and find the strength to do what is beyond our simple selves.
Herbert O’Driscoll writes: “We speak so casually of the presence of God. We assume certain things of it, that it is nice, that it is soothing, encouraging, affirmative. This of course reflects our wishes, and indeed there are times when the presence of God is thus. But to describe the presence of God in this way is like describing the ocean as calm, the wind as a whisper, or fire as warming. There can be terror at the presence of God. The fact that we sometimes feel this terror, its demand, its vocation, its cost, is precisely the measure of how clear our understanding of God is. For Elizabeth, for Mary, and for ourselves – our yes – nothing is ever the same again!
May we, like Elizabeth and Mary, trust that God is coming to save and free us. May we, like them, give thanks that God has taken away our shame and then respond to God’s love by welcoming the shameful. May we, like them, become communities that support each other as we hope and wait.
And on this feast of the visitation – remember that we are invited to another visitation; a time to embrace, to hold the child Jesus in the arms of our hearts for the life of the world … and to hold each other in the heart of God, and with each other hold out in praise and joy the light of the world for the world.
Michael Schiano has been a member of St. Brigid’s parish since 1990. As a parish member he has served on the Parish Pastoral Council, Liturgy Committee, Bereavement Team and is a member of the Passionist Companions. He has been an educator in the Archdiocese and has held positions in middle management and executive leadership positions. He currently works in Aged Care in the roles of Pastoral Care Co-Ordinator and Chaplaincy at Brigidine House, Randwick; St. Anne’s Hunters Hill; Pastoral Care Officer at Calvary Ryde.