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| Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth |
Today is marked as the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth. Mary has just received the Holy Spirit and was carrying the still-forming Jesus; Elizabeth is in her sixth month, pregnant with Jesus' fore-runner, John, the Baptizer. This lovely story is recounted in the Gospel of Luke 1: 41-56.
For your reflection today, then, a poem on the Visitation by Anglican priest and poet, Malcolm Guite.
The Visitation
Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young’,
Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime’
They sing today for all the great unsung
Women who turned eternity to time
Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth
Prophets who bring the best in us to birth.
-- Malcolm Guite, Sounding the Seasons, Canterbury Press, 2012
To hear the poet read his sonnet aloud, click HERE. May it bless your day. 😊
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