Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 Lectionary: 572

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!
Sing joyfully, O Israel!
Be glad and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!

Many women in the Old Testament display the grace and spirit which describe the Virgin Mary. Eve is the mother of all the living; Sarah, the faithful wife; Esther, the beautiful, courageous,and devout; and Judith, a womanly warrior. The list includes Ruth, the Shunnamite Woman, Solomon's mother Bathsheba, and Deborah. Jerusalem, Mount Zion, and the temple are also described as women; they prefigure the virgin daughter who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. 

In the earliest years of this century, as news reports of pedophilia among the clergy scandalized the Church and the world, some bishops reminded us that the Church remains forever innocent, pure, and faithful. The remarks were greeted with anger and cynical laughter; they explained nothing and made sense to only a few. It was not the time for such pious assertions. 

Hopefully, in a calmer hour, on this late-spring day, we can remember the innocence, purity, and fidelity of Mary, a young woman, as she visited her kinswoman Elizabeth. She is the Church, the most faithful and true, ever young at heart, joyful, and eager to hear and do the Word of God. 

She gathers us, her adopted children, as she approaches the Holy City and the Temple of the Lord. That word adopted recalls Saint Paul's reminder to all gentile Christians that, despite our alien origins, we have been adopted into the family of Abraham, and grafted into his tree. As the Father has given us to the Lord Jesus, and he in turn gives us to the Father, so were we given as adopted children to our Lady by the Lord as he died on the cross. 

Children of the Church, we are children of the Most Pure Virgin, and her innocence remains in us. As does the sin of Adam and Eve and all their ancestors. And so does the adoption of Jesus, especially as he took upon himself our guilt when he was baptized for the forgiveness of sins. 

In Mary we find our innocence as we are reminded of our guilt, and we find our joy. 

The joyful song of Isaiah also apply on this feast day when Mary arrives in the mountain city of Jerusalem: 

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of the one bringing good news,

Announcing peace, bearing good news,

announcing salvation, saying to Zion,

“Your God is King!”

Listen! Your sentinels raise a cry,

together they shout for joy,

For they see directly, before their eyes,

the LORD’s return to Zion. Isaiah 52:7-8

Mary, arriving on Mount Zion where Jerusalem was built, came to Zechariah's and Elizabeth's house with good news. And her lovely feet are bare, especially in the images of her Immaculate Conception, as she crushed the head of the serpent. Her feet are beautiful on the mountain. 

Yes, we are a sinful, undeserving people; but the Lord has made us worthy by his own decree, and he has adopted us as his children through the faith we share with Abraham, and the joy we share with Mary and her Son. 

This is the work of the Lord, and it is wonderful in our eyes. 

This is the Day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad. Psalm 118

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[BTW, the Renaissance painter Caravaggio was scolded for his "Death of the Virgin," because her feet were bare. The critics obviously missed the allusion to Isaiah's vision.]