Reflections on the Rosary: The Visitation

The second mystery, the visitation, describes the visit of Mary, when she was pregnant with Jesus, to Elizabeth, when she was pregnant with John the Baptist.  She stayed for three month. This mystery reminds us to mediate on Mary's charity in visiting Elizabeth.

Having a baby after menopause--and this does occasionally happen--was probably difficult for Elizabeth.  My paternal grandfather used to say that God knew what he was doing when he gave children to the young. He spoke from experience: he had children as a young man and, after marriage to a second, younger woman after his first wife died, as an older man.  It requires the energy and resilience of youth to comfortably manage pregnancy and parenting. No doubt Mary helped Elizabeth with the housework and cooking, which was grueling work in the days before labor-savng devices. 

There is a second way in which Mary's visit was an act of charity. When one has a momentous event in one's life, one wants to share it with someone who understands.  This is the underlying rationale for support groups.  As an older woman, Elizabeth was "out of sync" with her friends who, by now, were no longer bearing children and were instead fussing over grandchildren. Mary and Elizabeth were sharing the same experience at the same time--pregnancies, and miraculous pregnancies at that. Mary was there to sympathize with morning sickness, swollen ankles, and mood changes.

What I believe has often been overlooked is that Elizabeth was offering a great act of charity to Mary.  Because Mary had conceived out of wedlock, she was no doubt the subject of vicious gossip by her neighbors in Nazareth. Elizabeth's home was far away ,near Jerusalem.  Elizabeth allowed Mary to escape the gossip, the prying eyes of neighbors who were no doubt mentally measuring the size of her belly and snubbing her at the community well.  Because the people in Elizabeth's home town didn't know tthe dates of the pregnancy and wedding, they could assume that Mary was simply staying with family while her husband worked nearby.

No doubt many priests would regard this thought as heretical, but I have long suspected that Mary journeyed to Bethlehem to avoid the shame of being an unwed mother.  Popular pictures have a heavily pregnant Mary on the donkey about to give birth at any second but my own sense is that she could have arrived in Bethlehem much earlier.  As the adolescent bride of a poor day laborer, she might not have been able to afford proper lodgings and would have had to resort to giving birth in a stable.

This, of course, is speculation but what I believe is not speculation is that Elizabeth gave a home to a young girl pregnant under embarrassing circumstances, thus showing her deep compassion and capacity for charity. There is a Catholic song in Latin that translates as "Where there is true charity, God is there."  God, I am sure, was with Elizabeth.