On the Feast of the Visitation, celebrated this Saturday, two women humbly share with us the art of a meeting inhabited by God.
In His Mercy, God takes the initiative, sets things in motion, reveals Himself and speaks! Mary, a young virgin, meets the messenger of God. Zechariah, an elderly priest and husband of a woman advanced in years and barren, has a vision in which it is revealed to him that his wife Elizabeth will conceive a son (Lk 1:13).
From different generations, with contrasting physical and spiritual states, Mary and Elizabeth meet in a harmony of wonder, a harmony inhabited by the two fruits of God’s Mercy: Jesus and John the Baptist. A joy so deep that even Jesus and John the Baptist, within their mothers’ wombs, share in the experience. Thus, Mary and Elizabeth live a unique and prophetic feminine covenant, bringing together the Old Covenant and the New. From that moment on, within the silent secret that both women carry within, a revolution, a profound transformation, begins to take root. John the Baptist —whose very name is a witness to this revolution— meets Jesus, his cousin, his Master, the face of a Creator God who becomes small in the womb of a virgin: the one and only true revolution in history!
Following Saint Marie-Eugénie of Jesus, I am deeply convinced that women of faith who experience an encounter with God —regardless of their diversity— live among themselves a prophetic and transformative alliance. She herself experienced it in her relationship with the sisters at the beginning of the Congregation, especially with Mother Thérèse Emmanuel. She wrote: "She held for me an affection and fidelity I shall never forget, and which made our two souls one." (Chapter Instructions, Volume VI, 1887–1894, p. 39) Thanks to this profound encounter with God and a strong bond of unity among sisters, the Assumption continues to listen to today’s world in order to pursue its prophetic mission.
We now inhabit a virtual village where “digital media can expose people to the risk of addiction, isolation and a gradual loss of contact with concrete reality, hindering the development of authentic interpersonal relationships” (Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit, March 25, 2019, n. 88). Mary’s visit to Elizabeth inspires a revolution in our culture of care. It calls us to face-to-face encounters filled with joy and peace; to a gaze of compassion and mercy; to a smile of communion; to a listening that brings life; to a word of comfort and hope; to an attentiveness to the presence of God, who recreates, reorders, and reshapes the universe in our everyday encounters.
Sr. Christine Turabamariya Religious of the Assumption