23

May 31

FEAST OF THE VISITATION

Of all the stories about women saints I’ve encountered so far this year, it’s the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth that has most surprised me.

The Visitation is a Bible story about two pregnant women prophesying over each other: Mary is newly pregnant, and her cousin Elizabeth is six months along. Mary comes to visit, and the two women share a remarkable moment. John the Baptist, who is gestating in Elizabeth’s womb, leaps inside her, and Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. She proclaims in a loud voice that Mary is blessed among women and that the child she carries is also blessed. “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Mary is astonished at her older relative’s words and in response sings one of the most famous and subversive songs in the Bible: the Magnificat.

Elizabeth’s prophecy makes Mary the first saint, forever setting Mary apart as special. That part makes sense to me. Women tell women the truth of the matter; they recognize the stories of God written all over each other’s lives.

The monastery down the street is named after this Bible story, but the first time I heard its name, I wasn’t sure whether the Visitation referred to the angel of the Lord visiting Mary (nope, that’s the Annunciation) or something else entirely. I was confused because I didn’t grow up hearing the story of the Visitation often—in part, I think, because the Protestant churches I’ve attended tend to ignore Mary. In the Catholic Church, the Visitation is more well known. It’s considered the second joyful mystery of the rosary, which Catholics are taught to meditate on when praying.

The Visitation story is pictured all over the monastery. Over the fireplace at the Fremont house, a painting by Brother Mickey McGrath depicts Mary and Elizabeth as African queens in kente cloth embracing one another. A statue of two native women holding one another is fused into a single piece of stone, the dress of Elizabeth swirling and enfolding that of Mary. This special relationship is evident in the spirit, or charism, of the Visitation Sisters. It’s a mutuality, an honoring of one another, a hospitality and welcome of a sister’s presence. It is also a fulfillment of a prophecy—where one woman confirms the special calling in another’s life. It’s a recognition of the holy, the literal indwelling of God, and the prophetic response in Mary’s song—that God comes to uplift the needy and to scatter the proud.

Notice there are no males in this story (besides those in utero). Mary and Elizabeth don’t need their husbands’ “spiritual headship” to recognize the inner workings of the Spirit or to preach God’s truth in new and miraculous ways. Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, has been struck mute because he didn’t believe the angel, and at this point Joseph doesn’t even know his fiancée is pregnant. The miracles of God, like in the Resurrection story, are first revealed to the women.

A man I met at the monastery said that the hospitality of the Visitation Monastery allows the soul to show itself, that the feeling of welcome brings out our truest selves. It’s an unveiling—it reveals the state of our hearts; it is a means for God to show up in our lives. It is the condition needed for prophecy, for God’s love to be embodied, for us to understand the truth about who we are and how God is present. These soul friends help us know God. The man also mentioned the words of John O’Donohue, who writes about anam cara, or spiritual friends. A soul without a spiritual companion is like a body without a head. We need community. We need companions on our spiritual journey.

Like Mary, I was nine months pregnant during Advent. Twice. The first time, Josh was a Christian, and the second time he wasn’t. I can’t remember if we prayed together for our first child when we were waiting for her birth, though it’s likely we did. Between those births was another pregnancy, one that lasted only six weeks. I had slid down the stairs while holding our two-year-old, keeping her upright and unharmed but slamming my side down on the cheap university-housing carpet, hard. I bled heavily for days, the new life in my body leaking out. When had the baby died?

The miscarriage happened in November, just a few weeks before Advent began, just a month before I overheard the conversation in which Josh told his father he was not a Christian anymore. I wondered what I had done wrong—if it had been the fall on the stairs, if I had missed too many prenatal vitamins, if I hadn’t been vigilant enough to keep that fluttering heart from stopping.

Two Advents, two healthy babies born in December. And one miscarriage in between, one death. Two Advents, three years apart, and one deconversion in between. A fall down the stairs. Faith that leaked away.

The nurse at the clinic told me that early miscarriages like mine are very common, that oftentimes there is something wrong with the embryo early on that makes it unviable.

I wonder whether Elizabeth had miscarriages. The Bible tells us that she was barren, but it never says whether she ever lost an early pregnancy. When she got pregnant with John the Baptist, did she harbor fear in her heart that maybe he, too, would die? Did she mistrust her own body’s capacity to bear and sustain new life to full term, to be more than a vessel of death?

I never expected to relate to Mary and Elizabeth, but like them, female friendships have always been catalysts for transformation in my spiritual life. My mother prayed with me at night when I was a child. Church ladies drove vans to youth group lock-ins and brought homemade brownies to confirmation class. Female college students led Bible studies at summer camp and Young Life groups in high school.

When I was pregnant with my firstborn, two other friends were also pregnant and due around the same time. We took a photo together at my baby shower, our bodies turned to show our profiles, an adorable lineup of baby bumps. We commiserated over morning sickness stories; we compared notes about birth centers and midwives. We organized meal trains for each other, making sure family and friends didn’t all bring lasagna. Once the babies were born and the winter faded into a mild spring, we met at Lake of the Isles and carried our newborns on the walking path, their bodies strapped tightly to our chests in Ergo carriers.

Those early years of babies and Josh’s deconversion were hard. Interrupted sleep, mastitis, leaky breastmilk. Bundling up a toddler and a screaming baby, shuffling them into the car, and driving to church alone. The loneliness of early motherhood and the shaky ground of our marriage.

In the Visitation story, Elizabeth tells Mary that she is blessed for believing God’s promise to her. Mary is no doubt scared and even incredulous. What had she said yes to? In the same way, a couple taking their marriage vows has no real sense of what they are doing. What did we say yes to?

Advent is a season, of course, about waiting. The church calendar includes Scripture readings and other prophecies—Old Testament stories about the Messiah, yes, but also apocalyptic readings about the end of the world. We wait for Jesus’ birth and we wait for Jesus to come again.

And what is it that God has promised me, promised Josh? What promise am I holding on to? I don’t believe it’s necessarily a promise that our marriage will endure, or that Josh will be a Christian again, or that we will be protected from suffering. No—the promise I hold on to is that God loves me and will never leave or forsake me, come what may.

When Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, she goes because the angel of the Lord has just visited her and told her that her older cousin is also miraculously pregnant. Mary wants to see for herself. If Elizabeth is pregnant, then the angel of the Lord wasn’t lying. If the angel of the Lord wasn’t lying, then Mary can trust the promise made to her: that inside her virgin, teenage body, the Son of God is slowly being knit together. God the size of a poppy seed, the baby books might say.

When I read this part of the story, I find myself unexpectedly tender toward Elizabeth. Maybe it’s because she shares my grandmother’s and daughter’s name, but I suspect it has more to do with how Elizabeth confirms Mary’s story—the angel hadn’t been a hallucination. Indeed, the Holy Spirit had been present in the clouds, forming the shape of a V over our heads, on the day Josh and I got married.

Because of Elizabeth, Mary can trust that God is indeed doing this marvelous, miraculous thing. When I am feeling low, I imagine Elizabeth beside me with her graying hair and round, pregnant belly. She reminds me not to be afraid, to trust that God was with us on our wedding day and is still with us now.