Reflection on the Visitation
During the Advent season, the Church reflects several times on two great Marian mysteries related to the nativity (birth of Christ).
This reflection is from a book by a British housewife who wrote in the 1940s war-time era of Great Britain and is considered a classic about the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The title is The Reed of God. It is still in print and I recommend the book for Christmas season reading. (Excerpted from the Magnificat devotional magazine for December 22nd).m
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When our Lady went to visit her cousin in the hill country everything seemed to be vibrant with joy; there was little John the Baptist, who very nearly danced into life; there was Elizabeth, dumbfounded with delight; and our Lady herself broke out into a song of sheer joy: My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. He has regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. He that is mighty has done great things to me; and holy is his name. And his mercy is from generation unto generation…. This indeed was the bride of the Spirit speaking. God had taken his little reed into his hands and the breath of his love sang through it, and this utterance would go on for all generations. In giving her humanity to God, Mary gave all humanity to him, to be used for his own will. In wedding her littleness to the Spirit of Love, she wed all lowliness to the Spirit of Love.
In surrendering to the Spirit and becoming the Bride of Life, she wed God to the human race and made the whole world pregnant with the life of Christ. I have come, Christ said, that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly. Mary knew in what the joy of the world was to consist, what it would be that would make everyone call her blessed, for it would simply be her own joy.
Everyone who wished it could be wed to the Spirit: not only solitaries living in lonely cells but everyone in the world; not only young girls and boys or children who had been somehow spared from sin, but sinners too; not only the young but also the old, because the Spirit makes everything new. The life filling her own being, the life leaping in little John the Baptist, the life breaking out into her jubilant song, the life springing on the hills around her—all that would be given to everyone who asked for it. She had given mankind the key. Indeed, she had unlocked and opened the door of every heart. Now men had only to leave it open.
