May 31

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 7 pt. 6

We have no greater example of a person who loves not her own will nor takes pleasure in satisfying her own desires than that of The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord.  Today's feast celebrates the visit of Mary to her relative, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, while they were both expecting.  Caryll Houselander has this to say about Mary in the events of the Visitation in her small book, The Reed of God:

And Mary rising up in those days went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judea. Those days in which she rose on that impulse were the days in which Christ was being formed in her, the impulse was his impulse.  Many women, if they were expecting a child, would refuse to hurry over the hills on a visit of pure kindness.  They would say they had a duty to themselves and to their unborn child which came before anything or anyone else.  The Mother of God considered no such thing.  Elizabeth was going to have a child, too, and although Mary's own child was God, she could not forget Elizabeth's need--almost incredible to us, but characteristic of her.

And further,

If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected, because we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it he is forming himself; if we go with eager will, in haste, to wherever our circumstances compel us, because we believe that he desires to be in that place, we shall find that we are driven more and more to act on the impulse of his love.  And the answer we shall get from others to the impulses will be an awakening into life, or the leap of joy of the already wakened life within them.

Br. Chad