Dec 21: The Mystery of the Visitation

Giotto di Bondone: The Visitation

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

Gospel: Lk 1:39-45

“And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy (NRSV, Lk 1:43-44).”

Lord God, your evangelist Luke saw clearly what is so difficult for us to grasp. The yet unborn, but very much alive, John, still without language or logic, acknowledges, with all that his little body possesses, the physical presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb. John leaps for joy within the womb of his own mother, Elizabeth.

It is easy for us, Lord, to identify who we are with our conscious selves, as if reason were the epitome of our humanity. But, if reason were everything, mathematics and science would be the final expression of human endeavor. What then would happen to art? What poet or musician or painter or sculptor, of any worth, allows himself to be ruled solely by the dictates of logical reason? Michelangelo, great co-creator with you, O Lord, believed that the completed statue was originally imprisoned within the marble itself and only released by the sculptor’s efforts. This tells us that Michelangelo never accepted that his reason was in charge. The masterpiece is always greater than the artist ever intends or plans with his intellect. The artist is as surprised by his own creation as much as is his public.

Lord, if logical discourse cannot explain the work of art, neither can it a fortiori explain your work in us. You, in your infinite majesty, dwell within all of us who will accept you. And even those who turn away are confronted at every moment by the immediate presence of your Word offering forgiveness and challenging return and acceptance. How can created, finite, human reason exhaust such ineffable mystery? It is a limitless, never-ending future to which we are called over and over again. It is all beyond the limits of unaided human reason to explain, this future for us that does not end that is present for you, Lord, who just is.

Lord, we said “yes” to you in the womb in response to your Word. John, having already uttered that same “yes,” then leaped for joy in the physical presence of your Word made flesh. Lord God, you visit us at every moment, in a way that human reason can only suspect. Continue, Lord, to empower us to say “yes,” not only with our intellect, but with all of our being, as John did, that we too may grow and grow in spiritual maturity in this world, now, and in the world to come, forever.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.