Day 13
Day 13
Luke 1: 41-45
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt 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 leapt for joy.
And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
The Visitation
All too often when experiencing a personal tragedy or upset, or the diagnosis of a dreaded disease, we cry out in pain and confusion. Though often silently or swallowed it is yet a “great cry”!
But sometimes there is a “great cry” in response to an overwhelming blessing. The Visitation tells of Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, and the latter’s reaction. I hear a cry of joy mixed with confusion. Why do I get such a blessing? I don’t deserve it! Who am I, a little person, a nobody in the grand-scheme-of-things, to receive a blessing that I can barely contain – so powerful that it throbs through the body affecting even the unborn?
I see such puzzlement also in the face of the elderly Elizabeth in this painting called The Visitation by the 16th Century Florentine painter, Jacopo Pontormo (held in the parish church of Carmignano, Italy). Mary’s response, also well conveyed is simply to “magnify the Lord.” That is, to make the event that led to this meeting up with Elizabeth even more amazing – that God has “looked with favour on the lowly”, and continues to do so. Such is the Grace coming into the world which draws out this “great cry”.
Mark
