Elizabeth's Faith as Shown in the Visitation

By Michael Pakaluk

Mary travelled "with haste" to visit Elizabeth. The trip of 90 miles can be done in under four days by a fit person walking quickly. Conception takes place in the fallopian tube, and after that, for about six days, the embryo travels down the tube to implant in the uterus. Therefore, the Lord was an embryo in the blastula stage in one of Mary's fallopian tubes, not even implanted, when Mary greeted Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, five months earlier, when she had discovered she was pregnant, had placed herself in seclusion. She would not go to the market and share her joy with her neighbors. Apparently, she was overwhelmed by God's mercy and wished to devote the time of her pregnancy, silently, to prayer and contemplation. This was truly the first "novena," the first nine-unit time of prayer (it was not, as people sometimes say, the gathering of the Apostles between the Ascension and Pentecost). Elizabeth, therefore, teaches all Christian moms that the nine months of pregnancy are a time ordained by nature's God for more intense prayer.

It was because she was in seclusion that even her kinswoman, Mary, had not heard of her pregnancy and needed to be told about it by the angel Gabriel.

What did Elizabeth contemplate in her seclusion? No doubt, Scriptures about the Messiah, and about the woman who would be the mother of the Messiah and the New Eve. But she also, doubtless, dwelt on the angel's words to Zechariah, which her husband had written down for her on wax tablets, just as he later wrote down, "His name is John."

Elizabeth knew that if her son was to be the forerunner of the Messiah, then the mother of the Messiah was to be a contemporary or a near contemporary. She could infer that just as she, an old woman and barren, had conceived the Messiah's forerunner, so it would be a Virgin who would conceive the Messiah himself, as Scripture foretold, in its authoritative interpretation at the time:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel." (Isaiah chapter 7:14)

Would it be Elizabeth's role to be the forerunner of the Mother of the Messiah, just as her son was to be the forerunner of the Messiah? Certainly, in her mind, contemplating this woman, so like her, she would have already regarded her as the most blessed of all women. In spirit, she would have given this title to this woman well before Mary's visit.

Luke tells us that Mary entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth specifically. Zechariah is not mentioned in his own home, for the reason that he was not with Elizabeth, as Elizabeth was maintaining seclusion. In any case, he was mute. Mary is apparently the first person Elizabeth has associated with in five months.

Elizabeth recognizes that just as the sound of Mary's greeting reaches her ears, the baby in her womb jumped. She says in fact that it jumped for joy: and since she is the mom, her interpretation must be taken as decisive. Likewise, she interprets this joy as joy at encountering the Messiah. Remember, she has been in seclusion. News could not have travelled that fast, in any case. Mary has not had time to speak. It is solely inference: from the fact that her baby jumps, she infers that the Messiah is present. He cannot be Mary. Therefore, Mary is carrying Him.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, she expresses in a loud voice - recognition. "It is you - you are the woman I have been contemplating who is blessed among women." And then she affirms the presence of the Lord, "blessed is the fruit of your womb." Elizabeth thereby witnesses to the Lordship, and the divine and human nature, of the blastula floating within Mary.

Did Mary have any subjective experience when she conceived Jesus, so that she recognized the moment when "the power of the Most High" overshadowed her? Normally, conception is not perceived. If she had no subjective ex...