In the final months of my life as an Anglican minister, in spiritual distress, I made my way to Walsingham in Norfolk to the shrines there dedicated to Our Lady—“England’s Nazareth,” it’s called.
Walsingham, as for so many, had become a place of spiritual comfort for me, and I needed to go there to pray, to see, and to hope. Leaving the Anglican shrine early one morning and walking the holy mile down the old path left by the abandoned railway, I arrived at the Roman Catholic shrine on the outskirts of the village. With other pilgrims I made my first visit to the image of Our Lady in the Slipper Chapel and then stepped into the Chapel of Reconciliation to say a few more prayers. Once inside I found a place in back to sit. A large number of pilgrims were milling about the Chapel, many of them waiting to make their confessions. After a few minutes, I was about to leave when a women sitting in front of me turned and asked, “Are you a Roman Catholic priest?” “No,” I answered. “I’m an Anglican.” “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gently said as she turned back around, utterly unaware of the pain her polite words caused, words too heavy and almost unbearable for one so tired of his past and so lonely for Catholic truth. I had come to Walsingham in search of some momentous spiritual and enlightening experience. I wanted the drama of conscience. This unknown sister just wanted to know if I were Catholic priest. Simple and ordinary fidelity often wrecks the proud ruminations of a very proud soul. There is clearness to holiness, and it is found among ordinary saints. It’s an infallible wisdom.
Sometimes—it’s just true isn’t it—truth and grace, conviction and courage come to us by the hands of other people. Often, they’re people we don’t know, people we speak to in passing. Often, we’ll be touched and sometimes permanently changed by a conversation or an encounter we didn’t foresee. At work or in the store we can often be greeted by hardship and rather frustrating people, certainly, but we can also be greeted by grace, surprised by the goodness of truth come from someone good and truthful, unexpectedly and beautifully.
The Bible is full of such encounters. Abraham was changed, wasn’t he, by those three men who had come for a visit under the oak at Mamre?[1] And how many of the miracles of Jesus begin by saying something like “Jesus was passing by,” the person in need of God found by chance and providence.[2] Jesus himself suggested that he would appear randomly from time to time as a stranger in need.[3] And Matthew describes the call of Peter and Andrew by saying, “As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers…”[4] An encounter unforeseen, sounds like, doesn’t it? Providence often happens that way. Philip was specifically directed by the Holy Spirit to make his way down to Gaza, but neither he nor the Ethiopian eunuch knew at all that they were to meet on the road—an encounter that when seen from the outside appeared random but from the viewpoint of God was meaningful and fruitful.[5] It seems to be the way God works, encounters chanced or otherwise. It seems that grace flows through human interaction, through fellowship, hospitality, and ministry. “[W]hat we have seen and heard we now proclaim to you,” John said, “so that our joy may complete.”[6] God set it up that way it seems. It seems that’s how he likes it—grace through visitation. Grace comes to us in this human form: charity in friendship, building heaven between us by our love for one another.
In recent days and weeks, we’ve been invited to reflect upon the advent of Christ in several ways. We’re to see him as the returning Son of Man, the Son of David and king, the Son of Abraham and victim. Christ, we hold by faith, is the fulfillment of every Hebrew hope, the key of heaven and earth, the keystone of all history. In this season of Advent, we’ve been invited by the Church to think of Christ in his full glory and significance—cosmic and royal, Messiah and Lord. Today, however, near as we are to the Christmas solemnity, we are invited to see the advent of Christ in terms of visitation, in terms of an encounter, a very human one, between two would-be mothers. Here we are again—something great—God working his will through his creatures. Two women come together in a very human embrace, and God is there, and everything is different.
The “Visitation,” as this meeting between Mary and Elizabeth is traditionally called, is rich with allusion and symbolism, some intended by Luke himself and some given through centuries of traditional reflection and prayer. In the young girl Mary, for instance, visiting the old woman Elizabeth, we see the encounter of the New and the Old. Mary representing the new covenant, the new ark, the new Temple, visits the mother of the last and greatest of the Hebrew prophets—the Old Testament welcoming the New as these two women embrace. The unborn John leapt in the womb of his mother as the unborn Jesus approached, announcing as he would decades later the coming of Christ saying in the wilderness, “Behold, the Lamb of God.”[7] These two women and these two unborn children tell a much larger story. More is involved in this story than a simple recounting of ancient Jewish domestic life. The mundane has become mysterious, and we, two millennia later, wonder about its meaning.
The Visitation is a parable of the change and continuity of salvation history. It’s a parable of Christmas. But it is also a parable of our spiritual pilgrimage and of the virtues necessary to welcome Christ and to be with him. In this joyful mystery we learn how to participate in the solemn mystery so soon upon us, and we learn how to welcome Christ in our lives now, and each other in Christ’s name.
We should, to begin, notice the response of Elizabeth. “Most blessed are you among women…how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me.”[8] Her response is a profession of faith and a shout of praise. She speaks of the child in Mary’s womb as her “Lord,” and she praises the mother of so great a child. Here we see the first virtue we’re to have at the advent of Christ—that is, faith. In some mysterious way Elizabeth is given the gift of faith and it shows itself in praise. And her praise, in turn, causes Mary herself to cry out in praise, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”[9] (If you ever wondered, by the way, what Mary thinks of all your Aves, here’s your answer. Elizabeth praises Mary, and Mary praises God; so too do our praises of Mary share in Mary’s praises of God.) Faith in this faithless age is what the Holy Spirit is asking of us. Faith is always necessary and shouldn’t be taken for granted. And it’s especially in difficult times that we must renew our faith. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus said to his disciples forcefully the night before he died, “have faith in God; have faith also in me.”[10] What do the Holy Spirit and the Church seem to be saying? It is this—have faith!
But there is more. The Visitation is also a parable of hospitality. When Mary arrived, Elizabeth, Luke says, was “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and Mary “remained with her about three months.”[11] Elizabeth welcomed Mary and in doing so welcomed Jesus. We obviously must show the same hospitality to Mary and the Lord in the homes of our hearts if Christmas is to mean anything. We must welcome Mary and the Lord in our material homes as well and in our daily lives. You shouldn’t compartmentalize your faith unless you’re determined to kill your faith and turn it into something fraudulent and fake. Being hospitable means welcoming Jesus into every room of the house and into every part of your life.
But there is something else to say about hospitality. We must remember that the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth was a thoroughly human encounter. Elizabeth was a woman of faith, undoubtedly, but she was also simply a kind and open person—she was “good folk,” as my grandmother would say. Often, we think of the spiritual life in individual abstraction. We can close our eyes and meditate and dream about being open to the Lord. We can even have beautiful moments of communion that way; but sometimes, even after personal moments of beautiful communion, we can still be just as miserable as we were before, cold toward others and hard of heart. To be genuinely hospitable, we must remember that our communion with God often begins and continues in and with others. That is, if we truly want to show God hospitality, then we must show hospitality to others. As the Lord said to that beautiful French actress and mystic, Gabrielle Bossis, “Today I’ll take every smile of yours for Myself.” And, “So,” Gabrielle said, “I decided to smile at everything and everybody.”[12] God often works through our openness, kindness, and charity toward others, so the question for us is this: Are we hospitable? Certainly, we show God hospitality, but do we show others hospitality? Are we hospitable to visitors, to our parish family? Are you hospitable to the stranger you meet, or will you be hospitable to the members of your family when you see them in a few days? We must remember how much God works through our simple and small hospitality. If you’re tired, skeptical, or bitter because of the wickedness of the world or disappointment, that’s understandable. But you can’t let that keep you from sharing in the openness God wants his people to practice. This isn’t trite advice, but the truth—truth we must embrace if we want to embrace Christ in his advent.
And so, we turn toward her, our Blessed Mother great with child. We, by our prayers, speak to her of our open hearts. We have faith. We sing her praise and praise her divine Son. We welcome God into our lives, and we welcome each other too. Expectancy, hope, joy, faith, and hospitality—these mark our life together. And so, in just a few days, be it “our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels; in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.”[13] Come, let us adore him. Amen.
[1] Genesis 18:1-15
[2] Matthew 20:30
[3] Matthew 25:31-46
[4] Matthew 4:18
[5] Acts 8:26-40
[6] 1 John 1:3-4
[7] John 1:29
[8] Luke 1:42-43
[9] Luke 1:46
[10] John 14:1
[11] Luke 1:41, 56
[12] Gabrielle Bossis, He and I, 35
[13] A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Bidding Prayer
© 2021 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
