Second Joyful Mystery ~ Visitation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Elizabeth
~
St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The Glories of Mary
My soul doth magnify the Lord:And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.Because He hath regarded the lowliness of His Handmaid:For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is His Name.And His mercy is from generation unto generations,To them that fear Him. He hath showed might with His arm:He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the lowly.He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy;As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.
FORTUNATE does that family consider itself which is visited
by a royal personage, both on account of the honour that redounds from such a
visit, and the advantages that may be hoped to accrue from it. But still more
fortunate should that soul consider itself 'which is visited by the Queen of
the world, the most holy Virgin Mary, who cannot but fill with riches and
graces those blessed souls whom she deigns to visit by her favours. The house
of Obededom was blessed when visited by the ark of God: “And the Lord blessed
his house." But with how much greater blessings are those persons enriched
who receive a loving visit from this living ark of God, for such was the Divine
Mother! ‘Happy is that house which the Mother of God visits, says Engelgrave.
This was abundantly experienced by the house of Saint John the Baptist; for
Mary had scarcely entered it when she heaped graces and heavenly benedictions
on the whole family; and for this reason, the present feast of the Visitation
is commonly called that of 'our Blessed Lady of Graces.'
After the Blessed Virgin had heard from the Archangel
Gabriel, that her cousin Saint Elizabeth had been six months pregnant, she was
internally enlightened by the Holy Ghost to know that the Incarnate Word, who
had become her Son, was pleased then to manifest to the world the riches of His
mercy in the first graces that He desired to impart to all that family.
Therefore, without inter posing any delay, according to Saint Luke, " Mary
rising up . . . went into the hill country with haste." Basing from the quiet of contemplation to
which she was always devoted, and quitting her beloved solitude, she immediately
set out for the dwelling of Saint Elizabeth; and because " charity beareth
all things;" and cannot support
delay, as Saint Ambrose remarks on this Gospel: ' The Holy Ghost knows not slow
undertakings;'''
Blessed Mary undertook the journey without even
reflecting on the arduousness of the journey; this tender Virgin, I say,
immediately undertook it. On reaching the house she salutes her cousin: “And
she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth." Saint
Ambrose here remarks, that Mary was ' the first to salute' Elizabeth. The visit of Mary, however had no resemblance
with those of worldlings, which, for the greater part, consist in ceremony and
outward demonstrations, devoid of all sincerity; for it brought with it an
accumulation of graces. The moment she entered that dwelling, on her first
salutation, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and Saint John was
cleansed from original sin, and sanctified ; and therefore gave that mark of
joy by leaping in his mother's womb ; wishing, thereby, to manifest the grace
that he had received by the means of the Blessed Virgin, as Saint Elizabeth declared
: " As soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant
in my womb leaped for joy." Thus, as Bernadine da Bustis remarks, in virtue
of Mary's salutation, Saint John received the grace of the Divine Spirit which
sanctified him: 'When the Blessed Virgin saluted Elizabeth, the voice of the
salutation entering her ears, descended to the child, and by its virtue he
received the Holy Ghost.'
And now, if all these first fruits of Redemption
passed by Mary as the channel through which grace was communicated to the
Baptist, the Holy Ghost to Elizabeth, the gift of prophecy to Zachary, and so
many other blessings to the whole house, the first graces, which, to our knowledge,
the Eternal Word had granted on earth after His Incarnation, it is quite
correct to believe, that from thence forward God made Mary the universal
channel, as she is called by Saint Bernard, through which all the other graces
which our Lord is pleased to dispense to us should pass, as we have already
declared in the fifth chapter of the first part of this work.' With reason,
then, the Divine Mother is called the treasure, the treasurer, and the
dispenser of Divine graces. She is thus called by Saint Peter Damian, ' the
Treasure of Divine graces;' by Blessed Albert the Great, ' the Treasurer of
Jesus Christ;' by Saint Bernardine, ' the Dispenser of graces;' by a learned
Greek, quoted by Petavius, ' the Storehouse of all good things.' - So also by
Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, who observes, that ' Mary is said to be thus full
of grace; for in her all the treasures of grace were hidden.' Richard of St.
Lawrence also says, that 'Mary is a treasure, because God has placed all gifts
of graces in her as in a treasury; and from thence He bestows great stipends on
his soldiers and labourers.' She is a treasury of mercies whence our Lord
enriches His servants. Saint Bonaventure, speaking of the field in the Gospel,
in which a treasure is hidden, and which should be purchased at however great a
price, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field,
which a man having found hid it ; and for joy thereof, goeth and selleth all
that he hath, and buyeth that field," says that 'our Queen Mary is this
field in which Jesus Christ, the treasure of God the Father, is hid,' and with
Jesus Christ the source and flowing fountain of all graces. Saint Bernard
affirms, that our Lord 'has deposited the plenitude of every grace in Mary,
that we may thus know that if we possess hope, grace, or anything salutary,
that it is from her that it came.' Of this we are also assured by Mary herself,
saying, "In me is all grace of the way and of the truth;" in me are
all the graces of real blessings that you men can desire in life. Yes, sweet
Mother, and our hope, we know full well, says Saint Peter Damien, ' that all
the treasures of Divine mercies are in thy hands.'
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