Retreat meditation on the visitation of Mary to St. Elizabeth

The angel announced to Mary the news of Elizabeth and Mary went to help her neighbor. No sooner is the Word of God conceived than she gets up, prepares for a trip and hurries off to help her cousin.

Mary has understood the Christian attitude. She is the first to be incorporated into Christ and immediately understands the lesson of the Incarnation: It is not worthy of the Mother of God to hold fast to the prerogatives of her maternity in order to enjoy the sweetness of contemplation, but rather to communicate Christ. Her role is to communicate Jesus to others. Not the sacrifice of spiritual benefits but their conscious enjoyment: something that happens so many times in our lives: for example, when we celebrate Mass in a shed with dogs, chickens and goats… Willingly, if it involves communicating Christ and the denial of that spiritual egoism that refuses to sacrifice consolations when the good of others demands it.

Real charity: gets up and goes off and takes the role of a servant for three months. Real, active charity that does not consist in pure sentiment… is ready to give real service and accept the bother and sacrifice it includes.

When service is difficult. Mary was about fifteen at the time and, carrying the blessed Christ in her womb, she set out for that steep and craggy mountain where Jesus would later lay the scene for the parable of the wounded Samaritan, left half dead by bandits. Excuses? The trip would take four days, four days of travel on unsafe roads. But the difficulties did not curb her charity. But no one had asked her for anything. It would have been enough to await the request. No one would find it strange. This is the way our egoism reasons when there is a question of service.

She left right away. She did not wait until the family advised her. As soon as she received the angel’s visit, she got up and left, before the news had even arrived. Mary, the Mother of God, takes the first step! How sincere she is in her resolution. She told the angel: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord”, and here she is acting upon it; she receives the angel’s news and leaves. This anticipation of the needs of others in granting favors, duplicates them. Asking for help can be so humiliating. Let us avoid this and above all let us avoid any brusqueness or lack of warmth in granting favors, for it does more harm than good.

Be like the Holy Virgin who does not seem to notice that she is sacrificing herself. No ostentation, no harping on the service given, no making sure that the community or the whole city knows about it five minutes later. On the contrary, look at it as though you were the one benefitted! That’s charity, that is what wins hearts! Service given with bad humor is a lost cause: “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9,7). He who gives promptly gives twice! This is the great secret of fervor: promptness, swiftness and enthusiasm for doing good.

Do not take refuge behind our dignity, waiting and hoping that others will take the first step. True charity only thinks about the possibility of doing some service just as true humility does not consider what makes us superior but rather the root of our own inferiority. “Considering others greater than oneself” (Rom 12,10). Imperfect religious are stingy in their charity. They give the least amount possible, they think, discuss, haggle, and look at the clock… The Christian is magnanimous, beautiful, heroic, universal. He gives without measure and without hope of a return.