{"id":1298,"date":"2012-01-01T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2022-04-07T20:13:23","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T12:13:23","slug":"47-mary-visiting-elizabeth-at-ein-karim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"47. Mary Visiting Elizabeth at Ein Karim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, \u201cBlessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb<\/strong>!<\/span>\u201d [Luke 139-42<\/span>]<\/p>\n

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[L] Mosaic on the front external wall of the Church of the Visitation, Ein Karim, showing Mary on her way from Nazareth to Ein Karim. [R] A fresco inside the Church of Visitation, Ein Karim.
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Mary\u2019s cousin Elizabeth, who in her old age was considered barren, was six months pregnant, for nothing was impossible to God [cf. Luke 1:36]. On being told of this, Mary at once set out to a town in the hill country of Judah where Elizabeth resided. The theme of the Feast of the Visitation centers on Mary responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to set out on a mission of charity. In the Visitation narrative, therefore, we look to Mary as model of the apostolate of the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

Resuming the communal reflection at the St Ignatius Church\u2019s parish feast day late July on the theme of “Fostering Unity Towards Mission”, we drew attention to three points from the Visitation that inform our understanding of mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Mary\u2019s Journey is a Missionary Journey<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Right after the Annunciation, Mary went \u201cwith haste\u201d on the long and arduous journey (90 miles\u00a0 as the crow flies) from Nazareth to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea, a place we now identify as Ein Karim.\u00a0Would she have walked, or would she have ridden a donkey?\u00a0We do not know. What we do know is that she would have traveled along a land of hills and valleys strewn with many rocks.\u00a0The most she could have covered in one day was 9 to 10 miles, so we are talking about a ten-day journey at the very least.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember that Mary was pregnant too. How many pregnant mothers today would risk the young lives they carry in their wombs and undertake such a difficult journey just to look after another pregnant woman? Would they not rather say they had a duty and a legitimate right to take care of their own interests first?<\/span><\/p>\n

And she stayed with Elizabeth for nearly three months until after her delivery before she returned to Nazareth to tend to her own pregnancy.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a celebration to conclude the month of Marian devotion in May last year, Pope Benedict XVI said: \u201cMary’s journey is an authentic missionary journey. It is a journey that takes her far from home, drives her to the world, to places that are foreign to her daily customs, makes her reach, in a certain sense, the limits of what she could reach.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And Pope Benedict gives us a point of application.<\/span><\/p>\n