Thoughts on the Visitation
Eric Hollas, OSB
San Damiano Retreat House, Danville, CA
Order of Malta Retreat Day
31 May MMXIV
It’s interesting how you can read a gospel passage and recite it day after day, and still miss something. Today’s gospel, the Magnificat, is a passage that we recite in the Liturgy of the Hours, every day, virtually without exception. And of course the power of the passage reflects the beauty of what God has done for one innocent young girl. As Mary points out, God has selected a most unassuming young person to be the Mother of his Son, and holy is God’s name.
Today we celebrate the feast of the Visitation, and as the reading from Paul’s Letter to the Romans makes clear, part of the focus is on hospitality. When Paul writes to the Christian community in Rome, he urges them to “contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality.” Already hospitality had become a well-established trait within the Christian community, and Paul himself had been on the receiving end of it for years as he travelled on his missionary journeys. It can sound self-serving to encourage hospitality, but no doubt Saint Paul saw service to one another as the embodiment of Christian virtue. It was the living out of the comment of Jesus that “those who receive you receive me, and the one who sent me.”
In that light, the last verse of today’s gospel caught my eye. Luke reports that Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth and stayed for three months. I don’t know about you, but my own practice of hospitality would wear thin after a couple of days. I’d probably also be tempted to remind Mary that she had a husband waiting for her at home. I’d very likely add the rhetorical comment that “you [Mary] must miss Joseph a lot. I bet you long to see him every day, don’t you?”
But I’m not Elizabeth, and the modern practice of hospitality is not the same as ancient middle-eastern hospitality. Still, changing times and customs don’t take us off the hook when it comes to hospitality. When the Lord comes calling, we have an obligation to be hospitable. More specifically, when the Lord comes calling under the form of the sick and the poor, we need to open our eyes and our hearts to him and to them.
Such hospitality was shown by Elizabeth to the mother of her Lord. Such hospitality was shown by Mary as she welcomed the Son of God into her life. And in a moment we welcome the body and blood of Christ under our individual roofs. May we be hospitable today and always as we welcome Christ into our lives.