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VISITATION

Prayer is not just listening.

God loves to visit people!

When the Lord visits us –
it’s a call us to stand up, get moving
and reach out to others.

Visitation always follows annunciation.

How could anyone hold in Good News?

A mouth needs an ear.

And Mary went with haste
into the hill country
to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

Friendship.
People visiting people.
People caring,
listening, spending time with,
wondering how the other person is doing.

Can I help?

The knocking on the door,
the sending of the letter,
the surprise call,
the reaching out in haste
to come into another’s life,
into another’s world,
into another’s need.

Annunciations
lead to visitations.
Annunciations:
those moments of prayer
that rivered the flow of the Spirit into Mary’s life,
immediately flowing into action,
an uphill river of love,
the movement of Christ into the world.

Annunciations
lead to visitations:
calls to an awareness of another,
to another’s needs,
calls to love, to service.

This is the Way to live life –
and Mary showed us the Way to do it.
As soon as she knew someone could use her help
she dropped everything.
She set out in haste
to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

And Elizabeth greeted her with words
that would flow like a river from that day forward.
“Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”

And the baby leapt with joy in Elizabeth’s womb.
And with the coming of the Messiah
the world would soon leap
another step forward towards the Father.

And Mary sang her song,
her Magnificat, her gospel for all ages,
for all women, for all men,
for all those who want to visit and serve their neighbor.
“My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit finds joy in God my Savior.”

It was a song of joy,
a summary of all the Old Promises,
that the Savior would come,
that the Messiah would come
and the proud would be humbled
and the humble would be exalted.

Soon the blind beggars would see themselves
invited into the kingdom,
invited to the banquet
and find themselves sitting next to
the poor and the hungry,
enjoying the company of people
they were not supposed to be seen with,
people they weren’t supposed to enjoy.

And those who look down on them,
who look down on sinners and prostitutes
and the poor and the hungry in hell,
a hell of their own making, lonely and looking in.

And Mary stayed there 3 months with her cousin Elizabeth.
The two gathered together in his name
and there he was in their midst. Amen.