The hidden presence of Saint Joseph at the Visitation
The Visitation account omits much—but not by accident. Even the Gospels' silences reveal more than we might realise.
The Visitation account omits much—but not by accident. Even the Gospels' silences reveal more than we might realise.
Editor’s Notes
The following article is premised on what Fr Coleridge established elsewhere: that the Gospels tell us that Our Lady and St Joseph were not merely engaged but actually married at the time of the Annunciation:
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How the Visitation reveals Our Lady’s humility, charity, and quiet obedience to grace
That the Gospel omits Saint Joseph not to exclude him, but to focus on Mary’s role
Why this meeting sanctified not only John and Elisabeth, but the whole mystery of presence
He shows us that the Gospels are very deliberate about what they do and do not reveal to us.
The Visitation
The Nine Months
Chapter VIII
St. Luke i. 39-56.
Story of the Gospels, § 5
Burns and Oates, London, 1885
Narratives of St Matthew and St Luke
It will be well also in the present place, to make a few remarks on the narratives of the two Evangelists, St. Matthew and St. Luke, on whom we are dependent for our information concerning these early mysteries of the Gospel history.
It is necessary to repeat over and over again, that we must always bear in mind the scope and aim of each single Evangelist, in considering the relation of what he has written for us to the statements of any other, and also to the general course of the history independently of its particular annalists.
We have no single continuous narrative of these events. We have two independent statements, not covering the same ground, nor professing, even together, to make up a continuous account of all that happened. Each Evangelist leaves out much. We implied just now that there is an instinct of silence about holy persons, especially about those who are the chief personages in the Gospel history. There is also a rule of silence in the Evangelical historians themselves, as to those circumstances of the story which do not directly refer to the object which each one of the several writers has in view.
That St. Matthew omits much and that St. Luke omits much which might have been said, is obvious at first sight. We have to make up one complete account, not only by joining the two narratives together, but also by reminding ourselves of much which is not directly mentioned by either, but which must have taken place, and which is implied in what they say, or in what we know from other sources.
What St Luke omits
We have an instance of this last class of facts in what has been said of the vow by which Mary, and, as it seems certain, St. Joseph also were bound.
This vow is nowhere mentioned, but we are as certain of it as if it had been mentioned, from the words of our Blessed Lady to the Angel at the Annunciation. If we continue our examination of the narrative of St. Luke, on which we shall now have to comment in reference to the mystery of the Visitation, we shall see at once that it has to do with nothing which did not take place in and with regard to our Blessed Lady herself.
St. Joseph is not mentioned, from the time at which his name occurs as the husband to whom our Lady was espoused when St. Gabriel was sent to her, till the time when he is mentioned as going up to Bethlehem to be enrolled with Mary his wife. Whatever part he may have had in the Visitation is not mentioned, nor is there any mention of his hesitation about taking to him his wife, after she had been found with child by the Holy Ghost, nor does St. Luke tell us how that hesitation was set at rest, by the vision of the Angel enjoining him to take the part of the father of the Child.
As far as St. Luke is concerned, there is no word about any of these things.
What St Matthew omits
On the other hand it is equally true that St. Matthew leaves out altogether the mysteries of the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Nativity itself.
He says nothing at all about the reason which took the Holy Family to Bethlehem before the Nativity. Of course it would be most unreasonable to suppose that the first Evangelist was ignorant of these things.
What is essential for us to imprint on our minds is that it would be equally unreasonable to expect him to mention them, unless they fell in with the direct object which he had before him as he wrote, and which he served by mentioning the hesitation of St. Joseph, which proved the Divine and Virginal Conception of our Lord, and the Epiphany, which proved that He ought to have been born as He was born, at Bethlehem, by the witness of the prophecies, interpreted by the Jewish authorities themselves.
The two narratives must be understood as each perfectly true and authentic. But no argument can be admitted which rests simply on the silence of either, with regard to some point which it would have been inconsistent for either to have mentioned, considering the direct and only object which that particular Evangelist had before him.
Narrative of the Visitation
Let us now apply these truths to the narrative before us of the Visitation. It is, as has been said, entirely confined to the briefest possible account of the doings of our Blessed Lady.
"And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country in haste, into a city of Juda, and she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elisabeth."
Such is this simple statement, and, if we were to suppose that it tells us all that passed, we might imagine that our Lady, a young and most modest bride, left her home without any communication with her husband, and travelled a distance of two or three days' journey at least, alone and unguarded. If this had been the case, it is probable we should have been told how it was that so extraordinary a course was taken by her, without any direct guidance from God.
It is impossible to suppose, in the first place, that she took this journey without the cognizance and permission of St. Joseph. He had over her movements the rights of a husband, and she is not likely to have been guided to disregard them. The truth is that the Evangelist does not mention what is obvious and what ought to be taken for granted.
In the second place, there is no reason at all for supposing that she took this journey unaccompanied by St. Joseph. The Annunciation took place at the time of the year when it was the custom of the Jews to resort to Jerusalem for the great feast of the Pasch. We know from St. Luke that it was, a few years later than this, the custom of St. Joseph and our Blessed Lady to go up from Nazareth at this time. It is most likely that this devotion had been practised by them from the very beginning.
Thus the opportunity for the journey of Mary may well have been furnished by the incidence of the great feast almost immediately after the Annunciation. She might go to Judaea with her husband and on the way to the feast. The town in which St. Zachary and St. Elisabeth lived was some distance beyond Jerusalem, and thus it seems certain that St. Joseph would accompany our Lady, after they had paid their devotions in the Holy City, to the home of her kinswoman.
If this was so, we may pause for a moment to reflect on the presence of the Incarnate God, in the womb of His Mother, at this great feast, the same at which He was afterwards to offer Himself as the true Paschal Lamb, and on the affections and thoughts of that Blessed Mother, who had, so few weeks before, perhaps, left those sacred precincts as the Virgin bride of Joseph, thinking only of the holy resolution she had offered to God of perfect purity in the marriage state, and of her great desire to live to see the Incarnation, and be herself the humblest among the handmaidens of the chosen Mother of God. And now she found herself that chosen Mother, and she had already in her womb the promised Saviour of mankind!
House of St Zachary
The sacred text does not linger on this visit to the Temple which our Blessed Lady may have paid in her passage through Jerusalem, for it dwells on nothing that does not belong strictly to the subject before us.
The haste which our Lady used in her journey is directly mentioned, probably because it was desirable to show the quick obedience of the Blessed Virgin to the suggestion of the Angel, a haste perhaps urged on her also by some special impulse of the Holy Ghost. For this language is usual with Sacred Scripture, when the special impulse of the gifts of the Holy Ghost is signified, as when it is said that the Spirit drove our Lord into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and on other such occasions.
It would be natural for our Lady, if she once left her home, to hasten on her journey, because it was for her an unusual thing to find herself in public, exposed to the gaze and company of men.
"She entered into the house of Zachary."
… and this shows that she knew it, and that she knew she would be welcome, as among old and dear friends, if on no other grounds connected with the mystery which had made her the Mother of God.
Her salutation of St. Elisabeth shows her familiarity with her, and also her humility, for it seems to have been the custom for the lower in rank to salute the higher. She was the Mother of the unborn King, but she would make herself humble in all things, and her motive in this journey, after obedience, may have been principally one of charity, hoping that, as St. Elisabeth was old and infirm, she might be of use in waiting upon her.
Nor could she find any occupation more congenial to her own humility than thus to make herself the handmaid of the mother of the Precursor. She had longed, as has been often said, that she might be the servant of the Mother of God and now that she has received herself that unapproachable dignity, she at once lowers herself where she can, and makes herself the servant of Elisabeth.
Mary’s intention and God’s design
But though this had been the chief motive of Mary in her journey, God had other and higher aims in bringing it about.
For it was His design to use her presence, and that of our Lord in her womb, for the sanctification of St. John in the womb of his mother, and for the filling St. Elisabeth herself with the Holy Ghost and the spirit of prophecy.
These great blessings were to be conferred through the presence of our Lady at once, and as she was to remain for nearly three months in the house of her cousin, it must be supposed that the benefit of her abiding presence and continual conversation was not less great than that of her first salutation.
God may have had other designs also, with regard to the trial of St. Joseph, but the motive which was present to the mind of the Blessed Mother herself was probably that which has been mentioned, of charity and humility.
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The Visitation
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Our Lady 'rising up' went because Christ incarnate in her willed to begin His mission by sanctifying St John, according to Origen. Charity for Elizabeth and obedience to the mission of Christ caused Our Lady to go 'with haste'. A Lapide noted that also St Elizabeth - a venerable matron and mother of the forerunner - was chosen to announce to the world that the secret incarnation of the Word had taken place. In a few words there is so much of high holy things going on.