The double miracle of grace
In the Liturgy, the days of Advent offer all sorts of almost kaleidoscopic meditations on Salvation History. The ancient and new events are recalled at a brisk pace; linearity is given little heed!
Elijah, John the Baptist, Isaiah, Joseph, Mary, the Second Coming of the Lord — the readings at Mass and in the Hours keep us jumping back and forth.
The intensity of this way of perceiving time reminds me of how I felt as labor came upon me and my baby was about to be born — how every woman feels: my mind went everywhere and my spirit felt completely unsettled, because all the little iron filings of my soul were involved in the seeming chaos of aligning to the True North, the one necessary goal: making this hidden person present.
Today, in the Office of Readings, St. Ambrose offers an incredibly rich commentary on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. (I am putting it below so you can read it all — I encourage you to read it out loud to your spouse and maybe older children too.)
A rationalistic person trying to invent a liturgical season would do things in chronological order, probably; certainly the Visitation would not appear today, four days before Christmas!
God’s ways, though, are wise. Apparently, we simply must have our faces taken by His hands and made to look at certain things — really look!
I think we women can profitably consider the episode as women. Our world (and increasingly, worldly voices within the Church) seems capable only of regarding us as disorderly functionaries who must be pacified with assurances that we can take our place alongside and in opposition to men wherever they happen to be managing things, not questioning how we came to this pass. Sadly, many women cooperate in this pathetic wrangle, robbing us of our true destiny.
But if we delve into the Visitation, letting the words settle in our hearts, we see, as St. Ambrose says, Our Lady bringing her womanly consolation to her elderly cousin whom she knew to be barren, hastening out of her own surely preoccupied state, eager and loving.
When Mary heard this she did not disbelieve the prophecy, she was not uncertain of the message, she did not doubt the example: but happy because of the promise that had been given, eager to fulfil her duty as a cousin, hurried by her joy, she went up into the hill country.
The two women become prophets, St. Ambrose tells us. How often is everyone berated about our neglect of women’s voices in our modern society (where to tell the truth they are only too shrilly heard)? But perhaps we are the ones who have become deaf to every way of communicating except the one that’s strident, most lacking in texture and refinement, and most crashingly utilitarian.
Perhaps we need to recover a different way of seeing:
Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice [of Mary] but her son John was the first to feel the effects of grace. She heard as one hears in the natural course of things; he leapt because of the mystery that was there. She sensed the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord — the woman knew the woman, the child knew the child. The women speak of grace while inside them grace works on their babies. And by a double miracle the women prophesy under the inspiration of their unborn children.
St. Paul tells us that “Woman will be saved by childbearing.” We are used to scorning old St. Paul. We have it ingrained in us to dismiss him as misogynist, culture-bound, grumpy, mean. We are Paul-resistant.
However, the greatest surprise and truth of man’s existence as flesh and spirit is that God became a Child. Logically, then, the one who bears the Child is the highest of our race. Mary is creation’s boast, saved and blessed by the One she bore!
The “double miracle” of Mary and Elizabeth’s prophecy comes about “under the inspiration of their unborn children” — an inspiration for which their souls were prepared by their goodness and an authentic, exemplary sisterhood. As women, we can, if we desire it, participate in the miracle and be saved by bearing, as we can (but we women by nature can), the Christ:
“Let the soul of Mary be in each one of you, to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each one of you, to rejoice in God. According to the flesh only one woman can be the mother of Christ but in the world of faith Christ is the fruit of all of us.”
St. Ambrose addresses the precise nature of their virtue: “For every soul can receive the Word of God if only it is pure and preserves itself in chastity and modesty.” He hearkens to the Sermon on the Mount, the words of Our Lord Himself: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” Mary is most pure, blessed among women, as Scripture tells us Elizabeth called her.
St. Ambrose ends his sermon this way:
“The Lord’s greatness is proclaimed, as you have read elsewhere, where it says Join me in magnifying the Lord. This does not mean that anything can be added to the Lord’s greatness by human words, but that he is magnified in us. Christ is the image of God and so any good or religious act that a soul performs magnifies that image of God in that soul, the God in whose likeness the soul itself was made. And thus the soul itself has some share in his greatness and is ennobled.”
I wish you a blessed feast of our ennoblement — the great Nativity of Christ, in which “the soul feels its worth.” I pray you receive every grace offered you by the Good God, in love and joy!
From a commentary by St Ambrose on St Luke’s Gospel
The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The angel Gabriel had announced the news of something that was as yet hidden and so, to buttress the Virgin Mary’s faith by means of a real example, he told her also that an old and sterile woman had conceived, showing that everything that God willed was possible to God.
When Mary heard this she did not disbelieve the prophecy, she was not uncertain of the message, she did not doubt the example: but happy because of the promise that had been given, eager to fulfil her duty as a cousin, hurried by her joy, she went up into the hill country.
Where could she hurry to except to the hills, filled with God as she was? The grace of the Holy Spirit does not admit of delays. And Mary’s arrival and the presence of her Son quickly show their effects: As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting her child leapt in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit.
See the careful distinction in the choice of words. Elizabeth was the first to hear the voice but her son John was the first to feel the effects of grace. She heard as one hears in the natural course of things; he leapt because of the mystery that was there. She sensed the coming of Mary, he the coming of the Lord — the woman knew the woman, the child knew the child. The women speak of grace while inside them grace works on their babies. And by a double miracle the women prophesy under the inspiration of their unborn children.
The infant leapt and the mother was filled with the Spirit. The mother was not filled before her son: her son was filled with the Holy Spirit and in turn filled his mother. John leapt and so did Mary’s spirit. John leapt and filled Elizabeth with the Spirit; but we know that Mary was not filled but her spirit rejoiced. For the Incomprehensible was working incomprehensibly within his mother. Elizabeth had been filled with the Spirit after she conceived, but Mary before, at the moment the angel had come. “Blessed are you,” said Elizabeth, “who believed”.
You too, my people, are blessed, you who have heard and who believe. Every soul that believes — that soul both conceives and gives birth to the Word of God and recognises his works.
Let the soul of Mary be in each one of you, to proclaim the greatness of the Lord. Let the spirit of Mary be in each one of you, to rejoice in God. According to the flesh only one woman can be the mother of Christ but in the world of faith Christ is the fruit of all of us. For every soul can receive the Word of God if only it is pure and preserves itself in chastity and modesty.
The soul that has been able to reach this state proclaims the greatness of the Lord just as Mary did and rejoices in God its saviour just like her.
The Lord’s greatness is proclaimed, as you have read elsewhere, where it says Join me in magnifying the Lord. This does not mean that anything can be added to the Lord’s greatness by human words, but that he is magnified in us. Christ is the image of God and so any good or religious act that a soul performs magnifies that image of God in that soul, the God in whose likeness the soul itself was made. And thus the soul itself has some share in his greatness and is ennobled.
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