On the Fourth Sunday of Advent this year, the Church listens to the account of the Visitation in Saint Luke’s Gospel. The evangelist has Mary travelling to the hill country in haste. (cf. Lk 1:39) There, she finds Elizabeth, once thought unable to conceive a child (cf. Lk 1:7), now with a child in utero. The wonder at such a miraculous conception is not evident at all, as all the attention is now being given to the woman who just arrived at the house of Zechariah. (cf. Lk 1:40) It is Mary and her pregnancy which command Elizabeth’s undivided attention, and ours just a few days before Christmas.

Elizabeth praises her younger kinswoman but not as we customarily think of praise today. Praise today more likely comes to us for what we have done independently of God, rather than on what God has done through and with us in salvation history. The Bible obviously does not countenance the modern take on praise, and rightly establishes that Mary did not set herself apart from all women; God did. Her own words weren’t what Mary puts faith in; it was God’s word. Both in being singled out and in believing, the Virgin Mother is blessed. Her blessing comes not with her own initiative but with her cooperation.

The Visitation is actually an affirmation of the pattern already discernible in the Annunciation. For the selection of the Blessed Virgin Mary originates with that mystery, and Elizabeth’s role in today’s Gospel is to give a human voice to the truth of divine motherhood. But God’s choice of Mary could not be imposed upon her. It had to be accepted freely, and that is what happened. “I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)

Our Lady clearly assents to motherhood. This topic of motherhood happens to be a leading theme in Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women), the 1988 Apostolic Letter of Pope Saint John Paul II. Midway through that document, the pontiff says that motherhood gives women a new attitude that profoundly marks their personalities. Here he is not just referring to the mother vis-à-vis the child she is carrying; the bond between the two of them is undeniable. The reference is also to how a mother relates to people more generally. There is an increased sensitivity, the pope posits, that a mother has toward those around her once she has conceived and is with child. (cf. MD, 18) At the end of the letter, the pope calls this increased sensitivity “a manifestation of the ‘genius’ which belongs to women.” (MD, 30)

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