And while she narrates the wonders that God has done in her, there springs up from her heart that splendid song of praise, the Magnificat (Lk 1:39-56). Generously ready to perform all those intimate and familial acts of help that are needed when a child is born, Mary stays with Elisabeth for three months in an atmosphere of joy, of celebration, but also of trepid waiting singing and dancing for the Lord. For this reason, Mary goes on a long and arduous journey that takes her from Galilee to the distant mountainous region of Judea. We are offered a concrete example of this by Mary who hurries to visit her cousin Elisabeth who needs help because she will shortly give birth to a child. The very term ‘ misericordia’ (‘mercy’) already tells us that we are called to engage in compassion and tenderness and to care about the misery, the pain or the loneliness of those whom we visit. In the case of ‘works of mercy’, it is the Lord Himself who invites us to move out of our comforts or homes and visit someone who needs our help or our presence. If God almost always makes health-giving ‘visits’, we are invited to do the same. These two examples are sufficient for us to understand that in the Bible when God ‘visits’ someone almost always He does something that is beautiful, unexpected, wonderful, but also at times he visits in order to announce chastisement or punishment. The second announced to Mary, a young woman and a virgin, that she too had conceived a child and would give birth to a son whom she would call Jesus (Lk 1:26-38). The first announced to the elderly Zachariah that his wife Elisabeth, even though she was sterile and advanced in years, was already expectant and was near to giving birth to a son (Lk 1:11-20). Equally wonderful and marvellous were the ‘visits’ that God made through two angels. This visit of Jesus was certainly not a courtesy visit, as today we often understand a visit – it was so wonderful and effective that it ‘saved’ the world from sin and brought the world back to the holiness of its first origins.
With my own eyes I have seen your salvation’ (Lk 2:28-32).
#Sick and shut in scriptures full#
This was a reason for exultation for the elderly Simeon when he welcomed Jesus full of joy with open arms, exclaiming: ‘Now, Lord…you may let your servant go in peace. The greatest grace, the finest gift that God has given us, is to have ‘visited us’, sending His Son.
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