Mary set out in those days
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
We are often slow to respond to God's will. Even when we have that sense that he is calling us we still treat it as a lower priority and slot it into our schedules if and when it eventually becomes convenient. Works of mercy seem like arduous endeavors for which we are not particularly eager. Even the low hanging fruits of mass and prayer are often perceived more as obligations than as anything about which we are particularly excited. We are Christians, so we do these things. But not, it can usually be said, with haste. Mary was different. She actually appeared to be not only surrendered and committed to the will of God but even excited about it. She had discovered her own role in the story God was telling. And because of the urgency and importance of the overarching story she sensed also the importance of her own role. But this was quality of response was not meant to be unique to Mary. It was meant to mark all who had encountered God as she had, and therefore, eventually, all Christians.
When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
"Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
It was the presence of Jesus that conveyed to Elizabeth the same excitement which motivated Mary to come as quickly as she did. Elizabeth was not excited and moved to joy by anything superficial or even visible. But her spiritual sense was attuned to perceive the hidden presence of God which Mary brought into her midst. Thus she had not only the happiness of help in her pregnancy, nor only the joy of the presence of a relative and friend, but the all surpassing joy of the presence of God in her midst. Mary was the daughter of Zion, and the first to experience the gladness and exultation of the Lord in her midst. But those to whom she came became in a sense daughters of Zion themselves, part of the people of God in a new and more profound way, as they discovered how close the Lord, whose presence defined that people, had come to them.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
How close had God come to his people? So close that the liturgy of the Church can now only represent it with nuptial imagery and in fact with the reading of a love poem. This seems almost unbelievable to those of us who are still perceive God as primary imposing obligations of unwelcome interruption on us. We have little sense that he is interested in our good much less that he might love us to such a degree as in fact he does. But if we are having difficulty perceiving it we can try to be more open to it by asking Mary to bring Jesus more fully into our midst as she did for Elizabeth so that we too can begin to both shout for joy and respond in haste.
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