Today is May 31, the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Today, the Church celebrates one of the most joyful feasts of the year — the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At the heart of today’s Gospel is the meeting of two women, Mary and Elizabeth, whose lives have been transformed by the grace of God.
When Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home, Elizabeth exclaims words that echo across the centuries, words we know by heart: “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:42-43)
We pray these words each time we say the Hail Mary. And maybe because we say them so often, we risk losing their wonder. But today, I invite you to pause and let them speak anew. There is a kind of holy surprise in Elizabeth’s voice — astonishment that Mary would come to her, carrying within her the very Son of God.
Acting on ‘the impulse of his love’
This moment is not just a meeting between two expectant mothers. It is the first time Christ is brought to another person, carried in Mary’s womb.
The Catholic writer Caryll Houselander once reflected on this scene. She wrote, “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 wills, ‘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.”
In other words, if we are rooted in Christ — if he is truly growing in us — then he will make his way into the world through our lives, just as he did through Mary. We may feel unworthy or insignificant, unsure of what difference we can make. But as Houselander reminds us, none of that matters. Christ desires to be carried into every corner of the world, and he desires to do it through us.
Mary carried Christ. Elizabeth received him. Each of us is called to do the same in our own way, through our own vocation.
Let us pray,
Almighty ever-living God, who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying your Son in her womb, inspired her to visit Elizabeth, grant us, we pray, that, faithful to the promptings of the Spirit, we may magnify your greatness with the Virgin Mary at all times. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
