THE
Providence of God showed itself wonderfully and beautifully in the
manner in which the footsteps of our Blessed Lady were guided, after
the accomplishment of the great mystery of the Incarnation. It seems
almost impossible to imagine that she could have remained long in the
same home with the blessed Joseph without either imparting to him the
great secret of her Maternity, or feeling much embarrassment in
keeping it from him. She had received no commission, as far as we are
told, to do this, and God has His own designs as to the manner and
the time in which He makes such revelations to us. In this case the
knowledge of the Incarnation was to be made the occasion of a great
process of grace in the heart of St. Joseph, and this was to be the
appointed means by which he was to be fitted more and more for the
work which he was to dis charge in this Divine economy. Whenever St.
Joseph became aware of what had passed, it was the will of God that
Mary should, immediately on the Incarnation, be occupied in assisting
and tending her cousin Elisabeth, and that her presence, and much
more the presence of our Blessed Lord in her womb, was to be the
source and occasion of very great graces to the Blessed Baptist as
well as to his holy parents. Thus her first months of maternity were
to be spent in exercises of humility and charity.
St.
Joseph most probably accompanied our Lady at the Visitation, which
must have taken place about the time of his annual visit to Jerusalem
for the feast of the Pasch. He must also probably have heard the
words of St. Elisabeth on receiving the salutation of our Lady, and
he may in other ways have become aware, even though not directly from
her, of the great dignity to which she had been raised and of the
presence of our Lord in her womb. But he had not received from her,
or from any one else, a word of guidance as to his own position with
reference to her as the Mother of God and to her Child when He should
be born. As to this, Mary could tell him nothing. As God designed to
make this matter the subject and the occasion of a great advance in
the perfection of this blessed soul, it was well that he should be
for a time separated from our Lady, as we suppose him to have been
during the interval between the beginning of the Visitation and the
return of Mary to her own home. Thus while God was using the presence
of His Son and of His Mother with the holy family of Zachary for the
purposes of His Providence with regard to the sanctification of St.
John and his parents, He used her absence from St. Joseph for the
purpose of carrying on to perfection His own work in the soul of the
blessed spouse of Mary.
The
history of the Visitation and the succeeding mysteries is so much
wrapped up in the course of the Life of our Lord, that it seems
needless to dwell on them at any great length, though they are in
truth mysteries of the life of Mary in particular. It will be enough
to refer to the incidents, and to suppose that it is understood that
our Lord was all the time most actively engaged in His Mother's womb,
both in glorifying the Father by His most perfect adoration, and in
sanctifying His Mother as well as the other saints whose names occur
in the narrative. It will be enough to point out the features in the
history which bear especially on our chief subject, that of the
gradual advance and elevation of our Blessed Lady. The mention by the
Angel of the state in which St. Elisabeth was must be considered as
having suggested to our Lady the journey into the hill country of
Judaea. It was not a distinct command, but it might easily have
occurred to our Lady that the fact would not have been conveyed to
her in that way, unless it had been meant that she should act on the
knowledge. As our Lady had already been for some weeks the bride of
St. Joseph, it would not have been natural that she should have taken
such a journey without his leave, and probably without his company,
and as has been already said, he would have to go about the same time
at least as far as Jerusalem, that is, nine-tenths or more of the
distance.
Up
to the time of her arrival at the house of Zachary, we are not told
of anything said to our Lady which implied a knowledge of the great
event of the Incarnation. It may have been reserved as the reward and
crown of her perfect credulity to the words of the Angel, that she
should hear herself acknowledged as the Mother of God by the blessed
cousin for whose consolation and benefit she had made this long
journey. The salutation of Elisabeth could not add anything to her
faith, but it could add greatly to her joy, and give her fresh
occasion for thankfulness. It might unlock her lips in the praises of
God, Who had done for her things so great. The Magnificat is the
revelation of the feelings and thoughts which had been within her
ever since the moment of the Incarnation. It must be considered not
simply as the hymn of thanksgiving of our Blessed Lady only, but as
the outpouring, through her perfectly illuminated heart, of the
gratitude of all creation, and of the race of mankind in particular,
for the universal benefit which followed on the gift of His Son to us
by God.
We
are thus able to sum up in a comparatively few words the chief
virtues practised by our Blessed Lady in this mystery. Her visit was,
in the first place, an act of obedience. She understood from the
words of the Angel that it would be well for her to go and rejoice by
her presence, and assist in everyway, her happy cousin Elisabeth.
Such an intimation was to her a command, and as she was so much in
love with obedience, this may have been the most direct and immediate
motive present to her mind. But in other respects she could not but
be eager to make the journey, for it was an act of charity to which
she was invited. God had been very good to St. Elisabeth, and the
knowledge of this filled Mary with a desire to rejoice with her and
help her, and show her own intense gratitude to God for the far
higher favour which she had herself received. Persons who have
received such gifts and graces are not anxious to disclose them to
others, but they are anxious that others should share the mercies of
God, Who has been so merciful to them. Our Lady could not but know
that the Child in her womb was the blessing of the world, and that
wherever He was, especially among the servants of His Father, He must
be willing and desirous of spreading and scattering His graces. Then,
again, the humble services which she hoped to render to St. Elisabeth
had an attraction to her humility. She had just received the greatest
boon that it was possible for one like her to receive, and she felt
desirous to unburthen herself of her debt of gratitude to God by
occupying herself in the ministrations to His servant which were now
possible for her. She knew nothing of the revelation of her own
secret to her cousin, and so could not expect to be met by Elisabeth
with the honour and reverence which she was to receive. She hoped to
spend her time, as long as it might be pleasing to God, in waiting on
her cousin, in the humblest way, serving her as the representative of
God, Who had done for her things so wonderful. And the knowledge that
she had of the blessings which the presence of our Lord might bring
upon that holy household made her Visitation a work of mercy as well
as of charity, and she began even now to act as the Mother and Queen
of Mercy, and as having a tender care for all the redeemed of our
Lord, among whom she could not doubt that the child of Elisabeth
would hold a high place, from the simple fact of his having been so
marvellously conceived by an aged mother.
We
know that it is the way of God to exalt the humble, and thus it might
have been expected by those who study His methods of action, that
Mary would meet with some high honour on her arrival at the house of
Zachary. We do not know what may have passed between her and St.
Joseph, if he was already conscious of the elevation of his spouse.
But it may be that the first human homage paid to the Mother of God,
as such, was this which was now paid to her by the blessed Elisabeth.
She cried out with a loud voice, " Blessed thou among women, and
blessed the fruit of thy womb ! and whence is this to me, that the
Mother of my Lord should come to me? "The whole principle of the
honour paid to Mary in Heaven and on earth, by the angels and saints
and the children of the Church, is contained in these simple words.
And as has been said, it is most probable that they fell on the ears
of Mary with quite as much of suddenness and unexpectedness as the
words of the Annunciation itself. But this time there was no
hesitation, or silence, or prudent reserve, about the Blessed Mother.
She does not decline the honour contained in the words of her cousin.
On the contrary she accepts it, and extends it, for it must be with
reference to the salutation of St. Elisabeth that she says almost
immediately that all generations shall call her blessed, that is,
that the words of her cousin shall be repeated in the Church
throughout all generations.
Our
Lady takes the honour to turn it at once to
God,
to whom it belongs, saying that her soul
magnifies
the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God
her
Saviour.
And
then she pours herself out in the strain which sums up so perfectly
the whole praise and gratitude which is due to God for His infinite
condescension in taking on Him the nature of man. She praises Him for
His great display of power, of holiness, of mercy, she sings of Him
as conquering His enemies and the enemies of the human race in the
Incarnation, as taking them in their own devices and scattering them
in the imaginations of their own hearts. By the side of the
humiliation of the proud, she sees His other wonderful work in the
exaltation of the humble, and together with the sending away empty of
the rich she sings of the filling the hungry with good things. Lastly
she commemorates His faithfulness to His promises, and thus strikes
the note of thanksgiving for the promises themselves from the
beginning, as well as for their fulfilment, and for all the many
graces which have come through faith in these promises.
The
words of St. Elisabeth recognize the true position of the Blessed
Mother of God, and we cannot doubt that during the three months of
her stay Mary not only exercised herself in the humble services for
which she had made the journey, but also far more in labouring in
prayer and in ail other ways open to her, for the greater and greater
sanctification of the holy child and his parents. We cannot
understand the Visitation aright unless we see in it the beginning in
Mary of this office of Mother of all the Redeemed, which is one of
the titles given to her by the saints. For in nothing that our Lady
did from the moment of the Incarnation onwards, to which she had to
give her joyful and deliberate assent, must she be considered as an
unconscious and involuntary instrument only of the sanctifications
which were wrought through her. If this could have been the case we
might have expected to be told that St. Elisabeth had passed over the
Mother in order to hail the Child in her womb, and that the simple
presence of our Lord, and not the words of Mary, had been the direct
instrument in the sanctification of St. John. So it could and might
have been, and no one doubts that the whole process of the blessing
now imparted, whether to the mother or to the son, came from our
Lord. But the actual circumstances of the case were as they were. The
words of Mary wrought the marvel. And we may gather from this, as has
been said, that our Lady was now for the first time exercising the
office which belonged to her as the Mother of God, of God made Man,
not simply to be one of us, but that He might redeem us and sanctify
us and glorify us.
The
last thing to be noted about this work of the Visitation, is that our
Lady did not leave it until it was completed in the decrees of God.
She did not leave the house, as it seems most probable, until after
the naming of the child and the Canticle of St. Zachary, spoken after
his restoration from the dumbness which had been inflicted on him as
a penance for his want of perfect credulity to the words of the
Angel. At that time the period of her temporary absence from the side
of St. Joseph, as may be supposed, was accomplished. It is most
reasonable to think that he came to fetch her home, and that this is
the "taking to himself" of his wife, which is spoken of in
the first chapter of St. Matthews Gospel. They returned together,
full of joy and thankfulness, to Nazareth, there to remain until the
moment came for both of them to leave their city for the journey
which was to end at Bethlehem on the eve of the Nativity.
It
is not our purpose here to go over the whole question of the
hesitation of St. Joseph, which was happily terminated, as it would
seem, about the time of the naming of St. John Baptist. This question
has been discussed elsewhere, 1 and we assume here that the real
trial of St. Joseph consisted in the fact that he had no Divine
commission or instruction how to act under the altered circumstances
of his position, after the Incarnation had taken place in the womb of
his Blessed Spouse. He could neither leave Mary without pain, nor
remain acting as her husband, and consequently as the head of the
Holy Family, without some guidance as to the will of God. He had come
to the half-formed conclusion that as he had no order from Heaven to
assume the office of the father of the Divine Child, it would be
better for him to act the humble part of one who felt himself
unworthy of so high a position, which implied not only the care and
protection of the Mother and her Child, but also the responsibility
of their guidance and government, and thus he came to think of
withdrawing himself from her company, or rather, of not fetching her
home again after her visit to the blessed household of Zachary. To do
this would be an act of some authority, and would imply the
assumption of similar authority for the future.
We
know how this question was settled, when the appointed time came, by
the vision of the Angel in which St. Joseph was directed to take on
himself the office of which he thought himself unworthy. We cannot
doubt that not even St. John or St. Elisabeth were more constantly in
the thoughts or the prayers of Mary, during this interval of their
separation, than he. St. Joseph may perhaps have spent it in his
former home at Bethlehem, as he must have known from our Lady the
time at which the birth of the child of Elisabeth might be looked
for. Considering her wonderful exaltation, and the power and
intensity of her prayers, we may well think that her intercession
kept up and raised to still higher sanctity the spouse whom she loved
with such entire and devoted a love. We may well think that as the
devotion of her spouse to the beautiful virtue of continence had been
in this way her work, so also he was guided and helped all through
the weeks of his trial by the fervent prayers of Mary. It cannot be
doubted that her desires to see him associated with herself in the
work of carrying out the mystery of the Incarnation were most
intense, such as could only be satisfied if the decision of Heaven
had been for their separation, by the consideration of the decree of
God to which everything else must bow. It must have been the greatest
possible joy to Mary when the time came to learn that he was to
remain always by her side, and to share with her the wonderful task
of the bringing up of our Lord. The exigencies of the narrative of
St. Matthew have made him speak only of the hesitation of St. Joseph.
But it must be certain that the trial of his faithfulness and
humility was also a trial of the heart of Mary, to whom it would
indeed have been a pain to have to walk on her path of life without
his companionship and guidance. And great indeed must have been the
joy of both when all doubts were at an end, and they came together
again after their separation with so much new matter in their hearts
for gratitude to God and for increased devotion one to another.
When
they returned to their new home at Nazareth there were still between
five and six months to pass before the date of the Nativity. It is a
time of which we have no record at all to guide our thoughts, but we
are sure that it was spent by that blessed pair in the most fervent
prayers to God, in continual homage and adoration to the unseen
Child, Whose presence made the womb of His Mother like Heaven itself,
and in preparation, as far as preparation was possible, for the
moment so intensely desired when the Christ should be born. Their
mutual intercourse and conversation must have been most tender and
devout, while to our Blessed Lady it was not merely a time during
which she could continually lean on St. Joseph for help and support,
but also when she could practice her beloved virtue of humility in letting herself be ruled and governed by him with perfect submission
and a heavenly purity of intention. We commonly think of our Blessed
Lady as showing wonderful humility in submitting herself to the
provisions of the Mosaic Law when she became a mother, in such
matters as her Purification. But it must be remembered that her
practice of humility and submission began long before that,
especially from the date of her marriage with St. Joseph. For a
moment it had seemed as if she were to be entirely freed from any
such dependence and subjection by the elevation which had raised her
above all creatures as the Mother of God. But it was not so to be. On
the contrary, as the Mother of God she was to have the privilege of practicing obedience and subjection in a loftier degree than before,
which made every act of these virtues more precious in the sight of
Heaven than they might have been before her exaltation, while the
same fact gave a new character to the exercise on the part of St.
Joseph of the authority which his position as her husband conferred
upon him. These six months made a period in their lives which was
never to return in some of its features. It was a time of the utmost
calm and peace, of hushed ex pectation, and earnest hope and prayer.
Their secret was known to none about them, as we may suppose, and it
imposed on them the duty of worshipping and honouring the God Who was
so close to them with a homage that might be rendered to Him in the
name of the whole world. Yet in the eyes of all around them they were
like any other pair, living entirely in and for one another, and
expecting with all the ordinary joy and hope the time which would
knit them together by a new and most tender tie, by the birth into
the world of the Child Whom they were expecting.
