THE VISITATION I

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Judah; and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.

S. Luke I. 39, 40.

Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord G.o.d, to us thy servants, that we may evermore enjoy health of mind and body, and by the glorious intercession of blessed Mary, ever a virgin, be delivered from present sorrows and enjoy everlasting gladness. Through.

ROMAN.

Those who were faithful in Israel and were looking forward to the fulfilment of G.o.d's promises would be drawn together by close bonds of sympathy. It oftentimes proves that the bonds of a common ideal are stronger than the bonds of blood. It was to prove so many times in the history of Christianity when in accordance with our Lord's words the closest blood relation would be broken through fidelity to Him, and a man's foes be found to be those of his own household. But also it is true that the possession of common ideals becomes the basis of relations which are stronger than race or family. We may be sure that the members of that little group of which we catch glimpses now and then in the progress of the Gospel story found in their expectation of the Lord's deliverance of Israel such a bond. We feel that S. Mary and S. Joseph must have been members of this group and that they were filled with the hope of G.o.d's manifestation. Another family which shared the same hope was that of the priest Zacharias whose wife Elizabeth was the cousin of Mary of Nazareth. It is to their house in the hill country of Judah we now turn our thoughts.

It was a part of the angelic message to S. Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had "conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren." Overwhelmed as S. Mary was by the vocation which had come to her, perplexed as to what should be her next step, she may well have seized upon the words of the angel as a hint as to her present course. She must confide in some one, and that some one, we instantly feel, must be a woman. In her own great joy she would need some one with whom to share it. In her unprecedented case she would need a counselor, and who better could afford aid than her cousin whose case was in so many respects like her own, who was already cherishing a child whose conception was due to the intervention of G.o.d? We understand therefore, why it is that without waiting for the further development of events, Mary arises, and goes "with haste" to the home of her cousin.

It is just now a house full of joy. For many years there had been happiness there, but a happiness over which a cloud rested. The affliction of barrenness was their sorrow. To the Hebrew there was no true family until the love of the father and the mother was incarnated in the child; and through many weary days Zacharias and Elizabeth had waited until hope quite failed as they found themselves beyond the possibility of bearing a child to cheer them and to hand on their name.

We may be sure that they were reconciled to the will of G.o.d, for it is written of them that they were righteous, and the central feature of righteousness is the acceptance of the divine will. But though one cheerfully accepts the divine will there may still remain a consciousness of a vacancy in life; and therefore we can understand the joy that came to Zacharias when the angel appeared to him in the temple when he was exercising the priest's office and offering the incense of the daily sacrifice with the message that he should have a son. It was a joy that would be unclouded by the G.o.d-sent dumbness which was at once a punishment for his lack of immediate faith and a sign of the faithfulness of G.o.d. It was a joy that would hasten his steps homeward with the glad tidings, a joy that would fill the heart of Elizabeth when she heard the message of G.o.d. Soon the consciousness of the babe in her womb would be a growing wonder and a growing happiness. There would be a new brightness in the house where the aged mother waits through the months and the dumb father with his writing tablet at his side meditates upon the meaning of the providence of G.o.d and upon the prophecies of the angel as to his child's future. But what that future would be he could hardly expect to witness; he was too old to live to the day of his child's showing unto Israel.

It is to this house that we see S. Mary hastening, sure of finding there a heart in which she can confide. She "entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth." We are not told what the words of her salutation were, but no doubt it was the customary Jewish salutation of peace. There could have been no more appropriate salutation exchanged between these two in whose souls was abiding the peace of a perfect possession of G.o.d. The will of G.o.d to which they had been accustomed to offer themselves all their lives was being accomplished through them in unexpected ways; but it found them as ready of acceptance as they had been in any of the ordinary duties of life wherein they had been accustomed to wait upon G.o.d. We may seem sometimes to go beyond Holy Scripture in our interpretations of feelings and thoughts which we are sure must have been those of the actors in the drama of salvation unfolded to us in the Scriptures; but are we not ent.i.tled to infer from G.o.d's actions a good deal of the nature of the instruments He uses? Are we not quite safe in the case of S. Mary in the deduction from the nature of her vocation of the spiritual perfection to attribute to her?

Does not G.o.d's use of a person imply qualities in the person used? It is on this ground that I feel that we are quite safe in inferring the spiritual att.i.tude of S. Mary and of S. Elizabeth from the choice G.o.d made of them to be the instruments of His purpose of redemption.

But we are not inferring, we have the record with us, when we think of the joy of the mothers transcended in the joy of the children. The unborn Forerunner becomes conscious of the approach of Him of whom he is to say later: "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh away the sin of the world"; and there is an instantaneous movement that can only be that of recognition and worship. The movement of the child is at once understood and translated by S. Elizabeth: "And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy."

In the presence of such joy and such sanct.i.ty we feel that our proper att.i.tude is the att.i.tude of adoring wonder that S. Elizabeth expresses.

We worship our hidden Lord as the unborn prophet worships Him. We have no question to ask, nor curiosity at the mode of G.o.d's action. We are quite content to accept His action as it is revealed to us in Scripture; a revelation of the divine presense in humanity which has been abundantly verified in all the history of the Church. That verification in experience--a verification that we ourselves can repeat--is worth infinitely more than all the argument that the centuries have seen.

"Blessed art thou among women," S. Elizabeth cries; and in doing so she is but repeating the words of the angel of the Annunciation. This word, too, we presently hear S. Mary taking up, and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost saying: "From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."

And so they have. All generations, that is, that have been faithful to the Gospel teaching and have a.s.similated in any degree the consequences of S. Mary's nearness to G.o.d. When we speak of "Blessed" Mary we are but doing what angels and holy women have done, and it is great pity if in doing so we have to make a conscious effort, if the words do not spring spontaneously from our lips. Surely, we have not gone far toward the mastery of G.o.d's coming in the Incarnation if we have not felt the purity of the instrument through whom G.o.d enters our nature. The outward and visible sign of our understanding is found in our ability to complete the _Ave_ as the Holy Spirit has taught the Church to complete it: "Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death."

This reiterated attribution of blessedness to Mary our Mother calls us to pause and ask just what blessedness means. It is of course the characteristic Scripture locution for those who in some way enjoy the special favour of G.o.d. Blessedness is the state of those who have received special divine gifts of favour. A characteristic scriptural description of the blessedness of the righteous in contrast with the disaster of the unrighteous may be studied in the first Psalm. In the New Testament we naturally turn to the Sermon on the Mount where the Beat.i.tudes give us our Lord's thought about blessedness. I think that we can describe the notion of blessedness there presented as being the state of those who have taken G.o.d at His word and chosen Him, and by that act of choice, while they have forfeited the world and the world's favour, have attained to the spiritual riches of the Kingdom of G.o.d.

They are those to whom G.o.d is the Supreme Good, in whose possession they gladly count all things but loss. These are they who here in the pilgrim state have already attained to the enjoyment of G.o.d because they want nothing other or beside Him.

Supremely blessed, therefore, is Mary our Mother, who never for a moment even in thought was separate from G.o.d. From the earliest moment of her existence she could say, "My beloved is mine and I am His." We try to think out what such a fact may mean when translated into terms of spiritual energy, and it seems to mean more than anything else boundless power of intercession such as the Church has attributed to S. Mary from the earliest times. We see no other way of estimating spiritual power save as the power of prayer. It is through prayer that we approach G.o.d--for we remember that sacrifice is but the highest form of prayer.

The blessedness of S. Mary, that peculiar degree of blessedness which seems signalized by the reiterated attribution of the quality to her, must for our purposes to be understood as "power with G.o.d," power of intercession. It means that our Lord has chosen her to be a special medium of approval to Him, and that through her prayers He wills to bestow upon men many of His choicest gifts. Naturally, her prayers, like our prayers, are mediated by the merits of her divine Son; nevertheless they have a peculiar power which is related to her peculiar blessedness in that she is the mother of Incarnate G.o.d, and by special privilege is herself without sin. Of all those to whom we are privileged to turn in the joys and tragedies of our lives for the sympathy which helps through enlightened, loving prayer, we most naturally resort to her who is all love and all sympathy, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, blessed among women forever.

Although we are told nothing of these days that S. Mary spent with her cousin Elizabeth, we do gather that she remained with her until her child was born and that she saw S. John in his mother's arms, and was a partaker in the joy of the aged parents. She was present when Zacharias, his speech restored, uttered the _Benedictus_ in thanksgiving for the birth of his son. It was then, having seen her own Son's Forerunner that S. Mary went back to Nazareth filled more than ever with the sense that G.o.d's hand was in the events that were taking place, and of the approach of some crisis in her nation's history. It must have been that she talked intimately with Zacharias and Elizabeth and with them tried to imagine what was the future in which these two children were so closely concerned. When we consider the _Magnificat_ and the _Benedictus_ not as the "Gospel Canticles" to be sung in Church but as the utterances of pious Israelites under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, we feel how very vivid must have been their expectation of G.o.d's action in the immediate future, and with what intense love and interest they thought of the parts to be taken by their children in the deliverance G.o.d was preparing. How often they must have pondered the G.o.d-inspired saying: "He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord G.o.d shall give unto him the throne of his father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." "And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our G.o.d; whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace."

We think too of a more intimate sympathy that there would have been between these two women, drawn now so close together, not only by the blood bond, but by the bond of a common experience. What wonderful hours of communing during these three months! The peace of the hills of Judah is all about them and the peace of G.o.d is in their souls. What ecstatic joy, what ineffable love was theirs in these moments as they thought of the children who were G.o.d's precious gift to them. I fancy that there were many hours when they ceased to think of the mystery that hung over these children's destiny, and became just mothers lost in love of the coming sons.

As we try to think out their relation to each other it presents itself to us as a relation of sympathy. Sympathy is community of feeling; it is maimed and thwarted when there is feeling only on one side. We speak of our sympathy in their affliction for others whom we do not know and who do not know us, but that is a very imperfect rendering of the perfect thing. No more than love does sympathy reach its perfection in solitude.

But here in this village of Judah we know that we have the perfect thing--sympathy in its most exquisite form.

This capacity for sympathy is one of the greatest of human endowments, and, one is glad to think, not like many human endowments, rare in its manifestation. In its ordinary manifestation it is instinctive, is roused by the spectacle of need calling us to its aid. There come to our knowledge from time to time instances of what seem to us very grievous failures in sympathy, but investigation shows that ignorance is very commonly at the bottom of them. When human beings are convinced of a need they are quite ready to respond. Indeed this readiness to respond makes them the easy victims of all sorts of impostures, of baseless appeals which play upon sentiment rather than convince the understanding. And just there lies the weakness of sympathy in that it is so easily turned to sentimentality. But the sentimentalist who gushes over ills, real or imaginary, can commonly be brought to book easily enough. For one thing the sentimentalist is devoted to publicity. He loves to conduct campaigns and drives, to "get up" a demonstration or an entertainment. I do not mean that he is a hypocrite but only that he loves the lime-light. When any tragedy befalls man his impulse is to organise a dance in aid of it. It is extraordinary how many people there are who will aid a charity by dancing to whom one would feel it quite hopeless to appeal for the amount of the dance tickets. And yet they are not wholly selfish people; there does lie back of the dance a certain sympathetic impulse. We easily deceive ourselves about ourselves, and it is well to be sure that we have true sympathy and not just sentiment. It is not so difficult to find out. We can test ourselves quickly enough by examining our giving. Do we give only when we are asked? Do we yield to spectacular appeals or only to those that we have examined and found good? Do we put the spiritual interests of humanity first? Is there any appreciable amount of quiet spontaneous giving which is known to no one?

Do we prefer to be anonymous? Such tests soon reveal what we are like.

One who never gives spontaneously, without being asked, we may be sure is lacking in sympathy.

But of course one does not mean that sympathy is so closely related to what we call charity as what I have just said, if left by itself, would seem to imply. That is indeed the common form a.s.sumed by sympathy which has to be called out. But the best type of sympathy is the expression of our knowledge of one another; it is based on our knowledge of human nature and our interest in human beings. Because it is based on knowledge it is not subject to be swept away by the sweet breezes of sentimentalism. To its perfect exercise it is needful to know individuals not merely to know about them. The ordinary limitations of sympathy come from this, that we do not want to take time and pains to know one another. That, for example, is where the Church falls short in its mission to const.i.tute a real brotherhood among its members--they have no time nor inclination really to know one another, or they find the artificial walls that society has erected impa.s.sable. It is, in fact, not very easy to know one another, and it is impossible to develop the complete type of sympathy with a crowd. For one must insist that this highest type of sympathy requires, what the word actually does mean, mutual sharing in life, the partic.i.p.ation in the lives of our fellows and their partaking in our lives.

So we understand why perfect sympathy is conditioned on spirituality.

Unless we are spiritually developed and spiritually at one we cannot share in one another's lives fully. Where there are lives separated by a gulf of spiritual differences the completest sympathy is impossible. And we understand why Incarnate seems so much nearer to us than G.o.d unincarnate. It is true that "the Father Himself loveth you"; it is true that it is the love of the Blessed Trinity that is expressed in the Incarnation. The Incarnation did not create G.o.d's love and sympathy, it only reveals it. Yet it is precisely the Incarnation that enables us to lay hold on G.o.d's sympathy with a certainty and sureness of grasp that we would not otherwise have. The sight of "G.o.d in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself" is more to us in the way of proof than any amount of declaration can be. To be told of the sympathy of G.o.d is one thing, to see how it works is another.

Our personal need in this matter is to find the sympathy that will help us in something outside ourselves, outside the limitations of human nature. Much as we value human sympathy, precious as we find its expression, yet we do find that it has for the higher purposes of life serious limitations. It has very little power to execute what it finds needs to be done. A man may understand another's weakness and may utterly sympathise with it; he may advise and console, but in the end he finds that he cannot adequately help. The case is hopeless unless he can point the sufferer to some source outside himself on which he can draw, unless he can lead him to the sympathy of G.o.d. G.o.d can offer not only consolation, not only the spectacle of another life which has triumphed under a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances, but He can give the power to this present weak and discouraged life to triumph in the place where it is. He can "make a way of escape."

But there is another form of sympathy which we crave and need which is just the communion of soul with soul. We are not asking anything more or other than to show ourselves. We are overwhelmed with the loneliness of life. It comes upon us in the most crowded places, this sense of separation from all about us. Oh, that I might flee away and be at rest, is our feeling. It is here that we specially need our Lord. Blessed are we if we have learned to find in Him the rest we need for our souls, if we have learned to open the door that leads always to Him; or, perhaps to knock appealingly at that door which He will never fail to open. It is then that we find the joy of the invitation "Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest."

But Christ, the perfect Sympathiser, has a.s.sociated others with Himself.

If we can go to him, so can others; the Way is open to all. And those who go and are a.s.sociated with Him are gathered into a family. Here among those who have followed the interests which are ours, and have pursued the ends that we are pursuing, and cultivated the qualities which we value, we feel sure of that sympathetic understanding of life which we seek. And especially among those members of the Body who have gone on to the end in fidelity to the ideals of the life which is hid with Christ in G.o.d shall we look for understanding and help. It is from this point of view that the Communion of Saints will mean so much to us.

We value the strength of mutual support which inevitably grows out of a.s.sociated life. We cannot think of the saints of G.o.d as having pa.s.sed beyond us into some place of rest where they are content to forget the problems of earth: rather we are compelled to think of them as still actively sharing in those interests which are still the interests of their divine Head. Until, Jesus Himself cease to think of us who are still in the Pilgrim Way, and cease to offer Himself on our behalf, we cannot think of any who are in Him as other than intensely interested in us of the earthly Church, or as doing other than helping by prayer for us that we with them may attain our end. And especially shall we feel sure that at any moment of our lives we may turn to the Mother in confident expectancy of finding most helpful sympathy and most ready aid. Her life to-day is a life of intercession, of intercession which has all the power of perfect understanding and perfect sympathy. Let us learn to go to her; let us learn that as G.o.d is praised and honoured in His saints, as our Lord choses to work through those who are united to Him, so it is His will that great power of prayer shall be hers of whom He a.s.sumed our nature, that nature through which He still distributes the riches of His grace.

As I lay upon a night, My thought was on a Lady bright That men callen Mary of might, Redemptoris Mater.

To her came Gabriel so bright And said, "Hail, Mary, full of might, To be called thou art adight;"

Redemptoris Mater.

Right as the sun shineth in gla.s.s, So Jesus in His Mother was, And thereby wit men that she was Redemptoris Mater.

Now is born that Babe of bliss, And Queen of Heaven His Mother is, And therefore think me that she is Redemptoris Mater.

After to heaven He took His flight, And there He sits with His Father of might, With Him is crowned that Lady bright, Redemptoris Mater.

English, Fifteenth Century.

PART TWO

CHAPTER V

THE VISITATION II

And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in G.o.d my Saviour.

S. Luke I. 46, 47.

Forasmuch as we have no excuse, because of the mult.i.tude of our sins, we plead through thee, O Virgin Mother of G.o.d, with Him whom thou didst bear.

Lo, great is thine intercession, strong and acceptable with our Saviour.

O Stainless Mother, reject not us sinners in thine intercession with Him Whom thou didst bear.

COPTIC.

Wonderful was this day in the little town of Judah where these two women, each in her way an instrument of G.o.d in the upbuilding of His Kingdom, met and rejoiced together. There is revealed to us something of the possibilities of our religion when we try to follow the thought of these two women. They are so utterly devoted to G.o.d that G.o.d can speak to them. I think that it is well for us to dwell on this fact for a moment. We are apt to look upon inspiration, what is described as being filled with the Holy Ghost, as somewhat of a mechanical mode of G.o.d's operation. Our mistaken view is that G.o.d takes control of the faculties of a human being and uses them for His own purposes.

But that is quite to misunderstand G.o.d's method. G.o.d uses the faculties of a man in proportion as the man yields himself to Him; and one who is living a sincere religion becomes in a degree the medium of G.o.d's self-expression. This possibility of expressing G.o.d increases as we increase in sanct.i.ty. Those who have completely yielded themselves to G.o.d in a life of sanct.i.ty become in a deep sense the representatives of G.o.d: they have, in S. Paul's phraseology, His mind. To be capable of so becoming the divine instrument it is necessary, not only to offer no opposition to G.o.d's purposes, but to make ourselves the active executants of them. Our Christian vocation is thus to be the instrument of G.o.d, to be the visible demonstrations of His power and presence.

There is a true inspiration, a true speaking for G.o.d to-day, no doubt, as true as at any time in the Church's history, wherever there is sanct.i.ty. What is lacking to present day utterances of sanct.i.ty is not the action of the Holy Spirit, but authentication by the Church: that is given only under certain special circ.u.mstances and for special purposes.

But there is no need to limit the inspiring action of the Holy Spirit to such utterances as for special reasons have received official recognition.