Celebrated between the solemnity of Anunciation of the Lord and birth of John the Baptist. Mary’s visit to her cousin, St John the Baptist’s mother, records her ‘Magnificat’, another testimony of her humility and greatness before God. Mary’s readiness to serve Elizabeth is a good lesson on fraternal charity. (Fr James Socias, et al [Eds], “Daily Roman Missal”, p1534)
Serving cheerfully
Soon after the Anunciation, “Mary went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” (Lk 1:39). Having learned from the angel about Elizabeth’s pregnancy and moved by charity, she hurries to help with her household chores. Nobody obliges Mary to go. God, through the angel, hadn’t asked her; nor did Elizabeth seek help. Mary could have stayed to prepare for her Son’s arrival.
After a hard 4-5 days journey, on entering Zachary’s house Mary greeted Elizabeth. Filled with the Holy Spirit, she replied, “Why must I be honored with the visit of the mother of my Lord? ... when your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy”. (Lk 1:42-3)
Elizabeth calls her blessed and explains why. In the ‘Hail, Mary’ do these words excite us with the same joy? As an aspiration they can unite us to her while working or walking on the street; whenever we see her image.
Today we learn once more that each encounter with Mary implies a new discovery of Jesus. “If you seek Mary, you will find Jesus. And you will learn a bit more about what is in the heart of a God who humbles himself” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “Christ is passing by”, 144), makes himself accessible amidst the routines of ordinary life.
The mystery of the Visitation is one of joy. John the Baptist stirs exultantly in his mother’s womb. We perceive the true significance of the secret Mary treasured in her heart. This great mystery finds its purest expression in the ‘Magnificat: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour’ ... simple words but full of nobility and of intimate union with the Creator, a perfect mirror of Our Lady’s soul.
“From earliest times the Blessed Virgin is honored under the title, ‘Mother of God’, under whose protection the faithful take refuge ... in prayer in all their perils and necessities. Accordingly, following the Council of Ephesus, there was a remarkable growth in the cult of the People of God towards Mary, in veneration and love, in invocation and imitation, according to her prophetic words: ‘All generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me.’” (cf Second Vatican Council, “Lumen Gentium”, 66)
We have invoked her in a special way ... "but the month of May cannot end. It has to continue in our life, because of our veneration and our love for her, the devotion cannot disappear from our hearts; but has to grow and express itself in a witness of Christian living, ..." (John Paul II, “Homily”, 25 May 1979)
The way Jesus looked at people “must have been the same look as shone from the eyes of his Mother, who could not contain her joy: ‘Magnificat anima mea Dominum!’ -- and her soul glorified the Lord while she carried him within her and walked with him by her side.
“Oh, Mother! May we, like you, rejoice to be with him and to hold him.” (cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “Furrow”, 95)
Ref: cf F Fernandez, “In Conversation with God”, 6:235-41
` ` ` MAY DEVOTIONS ` ` `
The Visitation: Mary sings of the Love of God
“God is interested even in the smallest events in the lives of his creatures, in your affairs and mine; and he calls each of us by our name. This certainty that faith gives enables us to look at everything in a new light; and while remaining exactly the same, becomes different because it is an expression of God’s love.
"Our life is turned into a continuous prayer, we find ourselves with good humor and a peace which never ends, and everything we do is an act of thanksgiving running through all our day. My soul magnifies the Lord, Mary sang, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour.” (St Josemaria Escrivá, “Christ is passing by”, 189)
Let us offer our Mother: ‘The Rosary today and everyday, said with concentration and affection.’
Ref: Fr Charles Belmonte and Fr James Socias (Eds), “Handbook of Prayers”, 1988, p306
· “We are persuaded that families will receive from the recitation of the Rosary a guarantee of heavenly blessings ... When parents and children gather at the end of the day in the recitation of the Rosary, together they meditate on the example of work, obedience and charity which shone in the house of Nazareth; together they learn from the Mother of God to suffer serenely; to accept with dignity and courage the difficulties of life and so acquire the proper attitude toward the daily events of life.” (cf Letter of Pope John XXIII, ‘We have been informed’, to Rev Patrick Peyton, CSC, 1 May 1959.)
· “Mary taught Bernadette to say the Rosary. She gently led her from one ‘Ave’ to the next; she joined her in silence up to the ‘Glory Be ...’ which she recited with her ... The Rosary has something unique, sweet, and dear about it for each one of us. Does it not enable us to draw near to Mary, Our Lady, in a wonderful way and, through her to draw near to Jesus and to His heart in an atmosphere that is unique for its purity, fervor and power?” -- Cardinal G M Garrone
· “Ah! Mary, Queen of love, the most amiable, the most loved and the most loving of all creatures ... deign to grant me a single drop of your love.” -- St Alphonsus Liguori
Ref: In Rev Joseph A Viano, SSP,Two Months with Mary, pp53, 33
The Christian’s relations with the Holy Trinity -- ‘Our relations with God the Father’
What is a Christian? A person who enjoys a special relationship to God the Father, whose child he or she became in holy Baptism. What Jesus Christ is by ‘nature’, the Christian is by ‘adoption’. He receives by spiritual regeneration, according to his capacity, what the Word received in his eternal generation. “You have received”, says St Paul, “the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15).
The son of a poor man adopted by a powerful monarch and invested with all the privileges of a legitimate son, would be conferred a great honor! Yet this is but a faint image of our adoption by God in Baptism.
What are our obligations towards so generous and loving a Father? Surely, to love him with all our hearts, and to prove our love-- first, by avoiding all that could displease him, even the most trivial faults or failure in our norms;
second, by trying to please him more and more by the practice of virtue; and third, by striving diligently in the perfection of our state, in the words of Jesus Christ: “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48)
Ref: cf “Practical Meditations” by a Father of the Society of Jesus, 1964, p311
Believing in God Is the First Truth
‘I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.’ This is ‘the first truth of the faith’, the first article of our Creed. Creatures give testimony of God the Creator. The more man lets himself be carried away by the eloquence of creatures, their richness and beauty, the more need to adore the Creator grows in him and ought to grow in him. On our knees before the Lord, let us prostrate ourselves and adore.
These are not extravagant words. They confirm the perennial ways of the fundamental logic of the Faith and of the thought about the cosmos as well; about the macrocosmos and microcosmos. The Faith confirms itself in a particular way as ‘reasonable worship’.
I ask you to think about this disproportion which really exists in gigantic areas of contemporary civilization; the better man knows the cosmos, the less he seems to feel obliged to ‘bend the knee’ and ‘prostrate himself’ before the Creator.
Need we ask why?
Do people think that knowledge of the world and enjoyment of effects deriving from it make man master of creation? But should men not think, rather, that what man knows -- the astonishing richnesses of the microscosmos and dimensions of the macrocosmos -- he finds, as it were, ‘ready-made’; and that what he produces on that basis he owes to the wealth of raw materials in the created world? ...
Could contemporary man not think there may be a fundamental ‘injustice’ toward the Creator in the entire direction of development of his civilization and mentality?
“Come let us go down on bended knees before Him who has created this.”
Ref: cf “Prayers and Devotions from Pope John Paul II”, pp112-3
Our faith rests on the Trinity
Christians are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: not in their ‘names’, for there is only one God, the almighty Father, his only Son and the Holy Spirit: the Most Holy Trinity.
The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is central to the Christian faith and life; the mystery of God in himself. Thus, the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. The most fundamental teaching in the ‘hierarchy of the truths of faith’. The whole mystery of salvation is identical with the history of the way and means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men ‘and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin’.
The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the ‘mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God’.
Ref: “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, Nos. 233, 234, 237
Going (and returning) to the Trinity through Mary
St Alphonsus of Liguori says that the main role Christ entrusted to Mary is the dispensing of mercy, in which service Mary employs all her prerogatives. St Josemaria Escrivá adds: “When I was young I wrote (with the conviction that coalesced around my daily visits to Our Lady of the Pillar): ‘To Jesus one goes and to him we return through Mary.’" (‘Libro de Aragon’)
If our welcome to divine intimacy is possible because of the Son, it is only right that in reaching the Son we return to his Mother, Mary. Neither are we surprised that Christians, who go with Mary to Jesus, also “return to him, if unfortunately they had wandered away.” ('Libro de Aragon')
In this maternal task, Mary’s mission is not to mitigate divine justice. Isn’t God always good and merciful? Our Mother’s mission, rather, is to ready our hearts to receive the graces her Son has in store for us. That is why it is always helpful to return to her when we prepare ourselves to receive the sacrament of penance.
The Virgin always provides the shortest and most secure path to God; a most pleasant path that does not demand special conditions. She welcomes us in any shape, even if we can barely take a step. That is when she proves to be closest to us, ‘awakening in Christians a supernatural desire to act “as members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19).’
She bestows on us the gift of being ushered into the divine family. “Turn to our Lady -- daughter, Mother, and Spouse of God and our mother as well -- and ask her to obtain more graces for you from the blessed Trinity: graces of faith, hope, love, and contrition. ..." (cf St Josemaria Escrivá, “The Forge”, 227)
Ref: F Fernandez-Carvajal, et al, “Children of God”, 1997, pp60-62
‘Ad Caeli Reginam’ (Queen of Heaven)
This Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XII (given on 11 October 1954) develops the theological argument for the ancient belief in the Queenship of Mary; and proclaims the new feast, ‘Mary, Queen’, to be observed on 31 May; (“The 1955 National Catholic Almanac”, pp66-73) but was moved to 22 August after the reform of the Second Vatican Council. (“Our Sunday Visitor’s Catholic Encyclopedia”, 1991, p804)
Our Lady of Dolours, in the Church of St Gervase at Paris. This image which was at the corner of des Rosiers Street, was mutilated by a ~, in the year 1528; Francis I had it solemnly carried to St Gervase, and he ordered a statue to be made of silver gilt, which he himself set up in the place of the first. This statue was stolen in the year 1545, and another of stone was substituted for it, which always retained the name of Our Lady of Silver. — Du Breuil, Theatre des Antiquites, lib. iii. (“Catholic Gems or Treasures of the Church” Historical Calendar; http://www.bethlehemobserver.com)
Our Lady of Suffering (in St Gervase Church, Paris). (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
Our Lady of Suffering (‘Notre-Dame-des-Douleurs’). Church of St Gervase, Paris.(www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); Chapel in Ultrera, Seville.(www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
Our Lady of Suffering. (http://www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.htm)l; (MaryLinks Calendar.htm)
Our Lady of All Nations. (http://www.divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces. (http://www.divinewill.org/feastofourlady.htm); (http://www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html); (MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
Mother of Fair Love. (Title comes from “Ecclesiasticus” 24:23-31: "... I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. ..." (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
Mother of Fair Love. (http://www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html); (MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
Annual pilgrimage to chapel of Mary, Help of Christians, in Tra Kieu, Vietnam. (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
Feast of the Visitation. Based on Mary's visit to Elizabeth, in Luke 1:39-56, where Mary spoke ‘The Magnificat’. (See July 2). (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (www.iskandar.com/ourlady/ourladyfeasts.html)
In Litany of the Saints, "Invocation ‘Queen of All Saints’ was added by Pope Pius VII when he returned to Rome after his long imprisonment by order of Napoleon." (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm)
Our Lady, Queen of All Saints. (http://www.starharbor.com/santiago/m feasts.html; MaryLinks Calendar.htm); (www.marylinks.org/Mary-Calendar.htm); (maryfest.htm / www.starharbor.com/santiago/m_feasts.html)
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