Was Our Lady present at the birth of St John the Baptist?
The Gospels pass silently over Mary’s final weeks with Elisabeth—but this silence presents us with unique opportunities for reflection.
The Gospels pass silently over Mary’s final weeks with Elisabeth—but this silence presents us with unique opportunities for reflection.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How the silence of the Gospels conceals deep mysteries and sacred events.
That God gives us only what we need for faith, not for curiosity or chronology.
Why Mary’s hidden stay with Elisabeth was likely filled with grace and preparation.
He shows us that sacred history omits much in order to teach more perfectly.
The Nativity of St John
The Nine Months
Chapter X
St. Luke i. 59-80.
Story of the Gospels, § 7
Burns and Oates, London, 1885
The silence of the Gospels
The Gospel narrative tells us nothing more about the Visitation of our Blessed Lady than that she remained at her cousin's house about three months, and then returned to Nazareth.
We must accustom ourselves to these silences in the sacred history, wherein weeks and months and years, about which there must have been so much to tell, about which we shall perhaps have so much knowledge and instruction in the kingdom of our Lord hereafter, are passed over with hardly a word. It is not the object of the Evangelists to give us anything like a complete history. They have been guided to select for us just what it is necessary for us to know, just what it was fitting they should tell when they wrote.
And it is very likely indeed, as may be seen by the treatment of the Divine truths and events which have been revealed to us, that if more had been told us, the world would have raged still more furiously against the revelation than it has. These three months, during which the visit of our Lady certainly lasted, must have been a time of wonderful repose, prayer, spiritual profit, close intercourse with God.
Our Lord was present in the womb of His Blessed Mother in the house of Zachary, and His presence was known and honoured, both by the Blessed Mother herself, and by her hosts. For it is hard to suppose that St. Zachary did not share the Divine knowledge with his wife and his child.
The presence of Our Lady
The presence of our Lord with His Blessed Mother meant a perpetual stream of fresh graces and holiest inspirations to her soul. It meant a continual homage of affections of the most tender love and gratitude on her part to Him.
We have seen what it effected in the souls of St. John and St. Elisabeth at the first moment when it began, and we shall see immediately its effects on the soul of St. Zachary himself.
It is impossible to suppose that what had so great an effect when it began, and when it was coming or had come to an end, was not equally productive of holy results, in the way of enlightenment and sanctification, during the whole period during which it lasted.
Whether St. Joseph was present or not we are not informed. But we must be on our guard, as has been pointed out, against drawing any conclusion from the mere silence of the narrative. In any case, the period of these three months was a time of immense and most rapid spiritual growth, though, like many such times in the history of souls, it was outwardly a period unmarked by any great events which could attract attention.
Her return…
"And Mary abode with her about three months, and she returned to her own house."
It has been thought by some of the Christian commentators, that these words, coming as they do in the sacred history before the account which immediately follows them of the Nativity of St. John, imply that the visit of our Blessed Lady came to an end before the time for the birth of the child of St. Elisabeth.
Moreover, some reasons are given by these writers for the departure of our Blessed Lady, before the actual birth of St. John. These reasons are met by others on the part of other authorities, who contend that it would have been most seemly and natural for the visit to have been continued till its natural completion, after the birth of the forerunner of our Lord.
In truth, Holy Scripture is silent on this point also, and the reasons on one side or on the other, may have been set aside, in the actual course of events, by some decree of the wisdom of God of which we are ignorant.
… was probably after the birth of St John
But it seems, on grounds of criticism, unsafe to argue peremptorily from the words which have just been quoted that our Blessed Lady was not present at the birth of St. John.
It is evident that the narrative is cast in the form which it now bears for the sake of keeping more distinct the two mysteries, the mystery of the Visitation properly so called — that is, of the beginning of the sojourn of our Lady with her cousin, and the marvellous incidents by which her first salutation was followed — and the other mystery of the birth of St. John, and the marvellous incidents by which that birth, in its turn, was illustrated.
It is not at all unlikely that we have here an instance of what is common in the formation of the Gospels, though it is not always so manifest on the face of the narrative. The narrative, as we possess it, is made up of separate short documents, originally distinct, each of which relates the incidents or the sayings of some one mystery, or miracle, or discourse, or anecdote, and each of which therefore, either begins or ends with some few words by way of showing that the particular subject is opened or closed.
Then there follows, in the text as we have it, the beginning of another and entirely distinct narrative, opening perhaps with some words which, if taken as in connection with what has been immediately prefixed in the arrangement, might mislead the reader as to the order of the events in point of historical sequence. The Gospel of St. Matthew is full of such pitfalls for the unwary critic.
The Church’s order
In the present case we have the arrangement of the Church, which keeps the feast of the Visitation on the day after the octave of the Nativity of St. John, as a kind of guide to us, and this at all events sanctions the opinion that our Lady was present at the Nativity itself.
For if there had not been some tradition about the Visitation, which authorised the belief that she was present, as has been said, when St. John was born, it is not likely that the direct words of St. Luke would have been forgotten, which seem to say that she left her cousin before that time.
If there had been no such reason for the present order in the calendar, the Visitation would naturally have been celebrated before the Nativity of the Baptist. We therefore may conclude that there was some early tradition on the subject, by which the arrangement of the Calendar was settled in seeming discrepancy from the Gospel narrative.
The birth of St John
“Now Elisabeth's full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and her kinsfolk heard that the Lord had showed His great mercy towards her, and they congratulated with her."
The fact of the birth of a child at the natural time was nothing that could create wonder, but we are not told that St. Elisabeth had made her state of pregnancy known before the time came for her to become a mother indeed. It is said in the Gospel narrative that she hid herself for five months after her conception.
The number of the months is clearly given by St. Luke in connection with the Annunciation of our Lady, for he goes on to say that in the sixth month the Angel was sent to her. It is not therefore certain that St. Luke means us to understand that St. Elisabeth did not keep her holy secret after the five months had expired.
But, in any case, the birth of a son was what had been predicted by the Angel to her husband, and this may well have been taken as a fresh confirmation of the truth of the words of St. Gabriel, a large part of which refer to what was still future, the work and office of this blessed child.
The birth of a son was always considered a matter for special congratulation, and we find that Anna, the mother of Samuel, had made this particular petition to God that He would grant her a man child. Thus the congratulations of the neighbours and kinsfolk may have been offered, both for the marvellous favour of her being a mother at an age so advanced, and also for the particular gift of the child who might grow up at least to be like his father, the minister at the altar of God.
This supposes that they knew nothing, as yet, of the miraculous vision of his father before his conception.
His circumcision
"And it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by the name of his father Zachary."
The rite of circumcision, as it seems, was performed wherever it might be convenient, and not necessarily in the synagogue or in the Temple. There must have been some point in the ceremony at which it was the custom to give the name of the child.
This it seems to have been properly the office of the father to do. But St. Zachary was still under the affliction which had befallen him as the punishment for his incredulity, and thus the office was undertaken by some other person of his own family.
When the text says that they called him by his father's name Zachary, it is meant that they were going so to do, and perhaps the word had been pronounced, when St. Elisabeth interrupted the speaker, saying that her child was to be called John, meaning the grace or mercy of God.
She may have learnt this from her husband, notwithstanding his affliction, for it is natural to suppose that they had used some of the ordinary means of communication in such cases of infirmity. But it may be that she knew this also by Divine revelation.
The name John was not uncommon among the Jews, and there could be no objection to it on ordinary grounds. These people seem to have thought that the child should be named after some of the family.
"And they said to her, there is none of thy kindred that is called by this name."
The objection seems to have been divinely prompted, in order that it might give the required occasion for the appeal to the father of the child.
"And they made signs to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a table book, he wrote saying, John is his name. And they all wondered."
They must have wondered at the entire agreement between St. Elisabeth and her husband, for the name may not have been a matter of great ordinary importance, and in such cases, there would not have been any reason for the parents to have consulted or agreed together.
But a still greater marvel was immediately to take place….
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The Nativity of St John
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