Joseph carries a flask of wine. Zacharias waits in the doorway; After a lifetime of barrenness, Elizabeth and Zacharias were blessed with child six months before the Annunciation to Mary; their child ...

"Blest is she who trusted that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled." Everything in the visitation scene is motion and excitement: Mary's haste, her greeting to Elizabeth, John's leaping for joy ...

The thrust of chapters one and two of Luke's Gospel is not simply a family event between Elizabeth and Mary. The Visitation is an event of salvation history. Elizabeth, a model of the Old Testament, ...

Christians are called to follow Mary's example by responding to God's love with action, reaching out to others instead of withdrawing from the world.