"Blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled" (Lk 1: 45)
Today's gospel is the same gospel scene as the Fourth Sunday of Advent when Mary visits Saint Elizabeth. Saint Elizabeth's greeting to Mary is so simple and yet so deep, and it is shot through with the light of the Holy Spirit who, as St Luke says says, fills Elizabeth with His inspiration.
Elizabeth is the first human to recognize the immense dignity of the 'mother of the Lord'. At the same time, she also gives expression to the humility we all need before the works of God - "why should I be honoured?" As we saw in our last Book of Life session, the gifts of the Holy Spirit perfect the theological virtues by moving them in a divine way. God moves through us by means of these gifts for our own sanctification; for this pilgrim at least, living in the divine Will expresses the link between the movement of the gifts of the Spirit in us day by day and the vocation that God has called us to from the beginning. And in the Visitation this is what we see in Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, exercising the gift of understanding and knowledge, and all the while bearing in her womb the one who will become the herald of the Lord.
Through the gift of understanding - which enables us to penetrate revealed truths of the faith - Elizabeth sees and grasps Mary's place in God's plan and the holiness of the Child she carries. She also sees the holiness of Mary's faith in God's word, although it is not altogether clear which promise of the Lord she alludes to. We will come back to that in a moment.
Yet Elizabeth is also moved by the gift of knowledge - which enables us to understand creation in relation to the things of God - and thus she is cast into a deep sense of her own unworthiness as a creature who witnesses God's action in the world: "why should I be honoured?" she asks. Indeed, why should any of us be honoured enough to be given the gifts to know, love and serve God? And yet - mysteriously, beautifully - we are. And in our dignity as God's creatures and, even more so, as God's children through grace, we reflect something of the loveliness of God.
Thus, Elizabeth - moved now powerfully by these gifts of the Holy Spirit and a sense of her own inadequacy - pours out her greeting in a joy which fills both her and the child in her womb, the future John the Baptist. For joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit and is like a sign of the action of God in our hearts and minds through His gifts and virtues. I can only imagine St Elizabeth in this moment, like many mothers whose unborn children give them a kick, clutching her tummy, then grinning with Mary in the embrace of reunited cousins whose paths have so marvellously converged, even as her mind floods with the immensity of Mary's presence: the presence of the mother of the Lord.
Finally - to come back to the promise of the Lord to Mary - surely this is the promise which the COLW Book of Life invites us all to believe in through all our darkest days and driest moments. It is the promise that God is on our side and fights for us. It is the promise that He will not let us down, however dire life appears. It is ultimately the promise that He is forming us as His children for an eternity of loving conviviality and celebration, where, like John the Baptist in his mother's womb, we can leap forever with joy in the bosom of the Father.
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