Today’s Gospel reading is from Luke 1:39-45. It is one of my favorite readings because it is the story of the Visitation, of Mary visiting Elizabeth to share the news that she is pregnant with Jesus. This story is an important one to us as IHM Sisters and it is the name of our spirituality center — “We take our inspiration from the visit between Mary and Elizabeth who spent time together sharing their joys and hopes, their confusion and their fears as they tried to be faithful to what God was asking of them.” (Visitation North Spirituality Center)
Mary set out and hurried to the hill country to a town of Judah, where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth.
As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why am I so favored, that the mother of the Messiah should come to me? The moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who believed that what Our God said to her would be accomplished!” (Luke 1:39-45)
In what way does this gospel story of the Visitation speak to you this day?
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Please join us at 6:00 p.m. CST (your time zone) for Praying with the Sisters podcast, a ministry of A Nun’s Life. Visit aNunsLife.org/LIVE. This will be our last podcast through the holidays. We’ll be back on Monday, December 28. Also, please know we are trying out new podcasting technology so last Friday we had a slightly different format but today we are using the regular one. More to come in the new year!
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s interesting to hear the Visitation story proclaimed this year, especially after months of hearing about the Apostolic Visitation, the inquiry into the lives of U.S. Women Religious. This gospel story is so central to us as IHM Sisters and to many communities of Catholic sisters and nuns. It is an image of our relationships, how we minister, and how we choose to be in the world and in our community lives.
Trying to be faithful to what God is asking of me. Well, that meant kneeling in the midst of my parish church on Sunday, transferring my vows into the Community of Solitude. Scary, but awesome – and what an amazing date to do it!
Dear Sister Julie,
is there any way the vocation forum is going to work again sometime soon? It is incredible how one got attached to it
Thanks!
Paz, thanks for the heads-up! Didn’t realize it was down but I think I figured it out and should be up and running. Direct link to Vocation Forum is http://anunslife.org/vocation-forum if you ever need it.
Hello sister Julie,
For me, this teaches me the perfect charity, in which most of us in the outside world are lacking. Although we know what the word “charity” means but the application and real essence is not there. Forgive me Sister that, their is no confusion in the part of Mary bearing Jesus in her womb… since she was child she was already consecrated to God by St.Anne, while she was in the temple, she already have locutions, she already know that the Messiah is coming, although she did not expect that she is the choosen one. Her perfect charity to Elizabeth is just out of her pure love to her cousin, she knows after hearing it from the Angel, after the annunciation, she knows that Elizabeth is older and she needs a lot of help, specially knowing that Elizabeth’s husband Zacharias could not speak. Mother Mary’s charity, to serve is a great example to all of us, that even she herself is pregnant now maybe 20 to 30 days she never demand any help from anybody, or become proud and tell everyone she was choosen to be the mother of the Messiah, instead she keep it a secret in “humility”. It was probably a torture for her to keep it from Joseph… but she had to wait for the time being… after her service is done to her cousin. I say, what a lot of lesson here to learn… the simplicity, the pure love, the perfect charity, doing God’s will… I pray I will live to learn these virtues. Thank you sisters. Sorry my english is not that good.
Hi Sister Julie,
I love the picture of Mary and Elizabeth. As a white person growing up in America I’ve sometimes felt sad that I didn’t have a specific cultural background to be proud of. I’m a little bit german and a little bit irish, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. But when I see the Holy Family, or really any biblical image, depicted in a different culture it reminds me that as a Catholic I’m connected to Catholic Africans and Catholic Hispanics and Catholic Native Americans and that part of them is part of me. So, Catholicism has become the culture that I’m proud of being.