A MESSAGE FOR THE FEAST OF THE VISITATION
Yesterday was the Feast of the
Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is perhaps not a coincidence that this great feast precedes today’s
remembrance of our Lady’s Visitation to her cousin Elisabeth. For there is a profound connection between
the two feasts, which, at first glance, may escape our attention.
If we recall to mind the fact
that God is a Divine Being, we quickly realize that he does not have a material
body like we do. It is impossible for
him to suffer physical pain, he cannot be wounded or injured, he cannot bleed,
he cannot die. And yet, in order to
expiate for our sins, the blood of animals was not enough. Not even the blood of a mere man would be
sufficient, as it is finite whereas the offences against the infinite God are
themselves infinite. For the gates of
heaven to be reopened after the sin of Adam, it required the infinite sacrifice
of God made man, Christ’s only-begotten Son, whose nature was both human and
divine.
This hypostatic union of Christ’s
human and divine nature is more than just a theological concept. It is what permitted the sacrifice of the
Cross to take place. It is because of
this union that we may look forward to an eternity of happiness with God in
heaven.
But for Christ to have both a
human and divine nature, it was necessary for him to have both a human and a
divine parent. It was God’s will that
Christ should be incarnate of a human being, so that human blood could flow
through human veins in a human body, so that God could indeed suffer pain, could
shed his Precious Blood, and ultimately could even die for us.
That human parent whom God chose
was of course the Blessed Virgin Mary.
She could have refused. When
presented with the unequalled responsibility of being the Mother of the Son of
God, her humility could have caused her to hesitate, could have made her think
twice about her calling. But she
recognized, that despite the “lowliness of God’s handmaiden”, her divine
Creator was capable of magnifying her so that all generations would call her
blessed. Between the Annunciation and
the Visitation, she had had time to contemplate the great mystery of the
Incarnation. Now, with all the insight
of one “full of grace”, she was able to express to her cousin Elisabeth in her
canticle, the Magnificat, the details
of this mystery.
Today,
let us remember that it is Mary’s blood that flows through Christ’s veins. What he could not inherit from his divine
Father, our Lord Jesus Christ took from his Mother, the Mother without whose humble
Fiat we could not have been redeemed.
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