How did the Visitation complete the mystery of the Annunciation?
By God’s design, the Visitation becomes both a sign and a solemn witness to what St Gabriel had foretold to Our Lady.
By God’s design, the Visitation becomes both a sign and a solemn witness to what St Gabriel had foretold to Our Lady.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr. Coleridge tells us…
How Elisabeth’s words at the Visitation testify to the mystery of the Incarnation and Mary’s faith.
That her knowledge and exclamation flow from the Holy Ghost, not natural signs.
Why the Visitation confirms God’s promise and prepares the world for its fulfilment.
He shows us that grace reveals the truth of Christ and causes the soul to proclaim his coming.
The Visitation
The Nine Months
Chapter VIII
St. Luke i. 39-56.
Story of the Gospels, § 5
Burns and Oates, London, 1885
Why didn't Our Lady tell Saint Joseph about the Incarnation before the Visitation?
How the Visitation made St John the Baptist the first to adore Christ
How did the Visitation complete the mystery of the Annunciation?
Words of St Elisabeth
All these evidences of the wonderful effect which followed on the salutation of our Lady are contained in the few words in which the Evangelist relates what now passed.
"Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost and she cried out with a loud voice and said,
"'Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb! And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
"'And blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord.'"
The loud cry of this venerable saint must be understood as the effect of the great fervour of spirit in which she spoke.
She spoke under the immediate impulse of the Holy Ghost, and the revelation to her of the wonderful mysteries of the Incarnation could not have preceded her words by many seconds of time.
Mary's salutation had probably been gentle and modest, in a low tone of voice, and St. Elisabeth is moved so strongly by the Holy Ghost that she cannot contain herself. "Blessed art thou among women!"
These words are, as has been said, the last words of Gabriel's salutation and the first of hers. They contain in her mouth all that they contained in his. She adds the other words, "blessed is the fruit of thy womb," showing that she knew of the accomplishment of the mystery which the Angel had spoken of as future.
Both Mary and the fruit of her womb are blessed in the highest degree and measure. But He is the source of all blessing, He cannot be otherwise than most blessed, because He is the Incarnate God. Mary, in all her blessedness, receives from His fulness in this as in all other respects.
In this sense it is that the Fathers say that the latter blessedness is the cause of the former, though the blessedness of Mary is truly and perfectly such. The next words of St. Elisabeth seem the natural acknowledgment on her part of the great favour and honour done to her by the visit of her cousin. "Whence is this to me?" What merit is there in me, that, when I ought to be waiting on her and paying my homage to her, the Mother of my Lord should instead come to me?
Then she goes on to declare, not exactly how it is that she has known what has passed, but the wonderful effect, in herself and in her Child which have followed from the salutation of Mary.
Leaping of the child in her womb
The reason and cause of the knowledge of St. Elisabeth concerning the Incarnation could not be the leaping in her womb of the unborn child.
The reason for her knowledge was that she was filled with the Holy Ghost, and especially for the purpose of her being a witness to, and so far in some sort a companion of, Mary, in the accomplishment of the designs of God. The leaping of her Child in the womb was an evidence to her of the change that had been wrought in him and in his favour, by the presence of the Unborn God and the voice of His Blessed Mother.
In this sense we may understand the connection between the words of St. Elisabeth. She knew that the fruit of the womb of Mary was most blessed, because He was at that moment manifesting His spiritual power, as present in Mary, by the sanctification of His Precursor.
Thus the exultation of the Child in her womb was an evidence of the presence of the Incarnate God in the womb of Mary, and not only of His presence, but of the active exercise by Him of that power of sanctification which belonged, and could belong, to Him alone.
For she understood by the enlightenment of the Holy Ghost, as we have said, that the leaping of her Child was nothing less than a manifestation of his full intelligence of the mystery of the Incarnation, and of his joy and gratitude at the wonderful share which he himself had then and there received of the spiritual blessings with which that mystery of Divine condescension was fraught.
Blessedness of Mary
This may supply the reason why St. Elisabeth first speaks of the leaping of her child in her womb.
It was an evidence of the marvellous effects on his soul of the presence of his Lord. He came to be the prophet of the Highest, as his father sang afterwards in the Benedictus, and now, as some of the Fathers are fond of saying, he anticipated his office and declared preternaturally the presence of his Lord.
St. Elisabeth goes on at once to speak of the blessedness of Mary. She is not only the blessed among women, as having been chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of God, as having been, after her Divine Son, the great subject of prophecy and of type, as having been brought into the world in the wonderful way and with the wonderful privileges which belong to her great vocation, but also as having corresponded most faithfully and most perfectly in the time of her trial to the designs of God, and so having secured the execution of the Divine promises conveyed to her at the time of that probation by the mouth of the Angel.
This is the meaning of the last clause of the greeting of St. Elisabeth:
"Blessed thou that didst believe, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord."
This shows us that St. Elisabeth, as has been said, was at this time divinely enlightened as to what had passed between the Angel and our Blessed Lady, and that she now is commissioned to give on the part of God a further assurance to her that the great promises shall be accomplished. Her Son is to be the Son of the Highest. He is to have given Him by God the throne of His father David.
"He is to reign in the house of Jacob for ever and of His kingdom there shall be no end."
These are the things that were then spoken to our Lady by the Lord. For the still more wonderful things which formed the last portion of the message of Gabriel, that the Holy Ghost should come upon her and the power of the Most High should over- shadow her, and that the Holy One to be born of her should be the Son of God, had already had their fulfilment and were no longer future, nor could the blessing which they conveyed to her ever be recalled.
Connection of the mysteries of the Incarnation and Visitation
This prophecy of St. Elisabeth shows us the very close connection between the two mysteries of the Incarnation and Visitation.
It may be said, in a certain sense, that the former mystery is incomplete without the latter. Not that anything could be added to the truth and completeness of the Incarnation by any number of subsequent mysteries, but that the Divine counsels required that the relation between these two mysteries should be established through the confirmation of the former by the circumstances of the latter.
We have seen that the last words of St. Gabriel at the Annunciation referred to the conception of the Precursor in the womb of St. Elisabeth, and they implied, though not by way of direct command, that it was the will of God that Mary should immediately undertake the journey which ended in the Visitation.
For it was the rule in the revelation of any most sublime mystery that something should be added by way of confirmation or sign of the truth which had been revealed, even though there was not exactly any need, in the soul of the saint to whom the revelation was made, of such confirmation for the purpose of securing his faith in the revelation itself.
In the same way, the fulfilment of the sign given by way of this confirmation is a part of the Divine counsel in such cases, and it is this completeness which is added by the Visitation.
Confirmation of faith
It is needless to insist how clear it is, that the faith of Mary would have been the same if she had never gone to visit her cousin, and if, when with her, she had not received this magnificent testimony to the truth of the message of the Angel.
Her faith would have been the same, in its essential perfection, but it cannot be supposed that the circumstances of the Visitation did not send a glow of joy through the heart of Mary, making her faith itself full of its own radiance.
Nothing can be added to the essential happiness of the Saints, and yet they can receive an accession of joy when they are specially honoured in the Church on earth. In this sense Mary herself might be confirmed by these new prodigies.
Their natural effect was that all who knew them should be so confirmed. And in the unfolding of the Divine mysteries to the gaze of Angels and of men, it is easy to see how much is added to the splendour of the Incarnation by the Visitation.
The Visitation gave God the opportunity of declaring, by a series of marvels of the highest kind, that what He had promised to Mary by the mouth of Gabriel had already been performed as far as the Incarnation of His Son, and that it would be still further carried out, in due time, by the exaltation of the Child of Mary.
There may have been other designs of God in this arrangement of His Providence. It may have been a part of the preparation of St. Joseph, and of the full consummation of the faith of St. Zachary, that all this should take place, even though the faith of our Lady herself was beyond and above all such confirmations.
And the close connection between the two mysteries may be further seen in the fact, that it is not till the Visitation is completed that our Lady breaks forth into her great canticle of thanksgiving, of which we shall begin to speak in the following chapter.
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The Visitation
Why didn't Our Lady tell Saint Joseph about the Incarnation before the Visitation?
How the Visitation made St John the Baptist the first to adore Christ
How did the Visitation complete the mystery of the Annunciation?
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