The feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates the visit of Mary, the Mother of

God, with the child Jesus in her womb, to her cousin Elizabeth. The visit took place when
Elizabeth was herself six months' pregnant with the forerunner of Christ, Saint John the Baptist.

At the Annunciation of the Lord, the angel Gabriel, in response to Mary's question "How shall this
be done, because I know not man?" (Luke 1:34), had told her that "thy cousin Elizabeth, she also
hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren:
Because no word shall be impossible with God" (Luke 1:36-27). The evidence of her cousin's own
near-miraculous conception had called forth Mary's fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it
done to me according to thy word." It is thus appropriate that the very next action of the Blessed
Virgin that Saint Luke the Evangelist records is Mary's "making haste" to visit her cousin.

Visitation Facts
Date: May 31
Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-18a or Romans 12:9-16; Isaiah 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6; Luke 1:39-56
Prayers: The Hail Mary; The Magnificat; the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary
Other Names: The Visitation
Significance
Arriving at the house of Zachary (or Zacharias) and Elizabeth, Mary greets her cousin, and
something wonderful happens: John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth's womb (Luke 1:41). As the
Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 puts it in its entry on the Visitation, the Virgin Mary's "presence
and much more the presence of the Divine Child in her womb, according to the will of God, was
to be the source of very great graces to the Blessed John, Christ's Forerunner."

Cleansing of John the Baptist

John's leap was no ordinary movement of an unborn child, for as Elizabeth tells Mary, "as soon as
the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy" (Luke 1:44).
The joy of John the Baptist, the Church has held from the time of the early Church Fathers, came
from his cleansing at that moment of Original Sin, in accordance with the angel Gabriel's
prophecy to Zachary, before John's conception, that "he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even
from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes in its entry on St. John
the Baptist, "as the presence of any sin whatever is incompatible with the indwelling of the Holy
Ghost in the soul, it follows that at this moment John was cleansed from the stain of original sin."

Origins of Catholic Prayers

Elizabeth, too, is filled with joy, and cries out in words that would become part of the chief Marian
prayer, the Hail Mary: "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb."
Elizabeth then acknowledges her cousin Mary as "the mother of my Lord" (Luke 1:42-43). Mary
responds with the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), a canticle or biblical hymn that has become an
essential part of the Church's evening prayer (vespers). It is a beautiful hymn of thanksgiving,
glorifying God for choosing her to be the mother of His Son, as well as for His mercy "from
generation until generations, to them that fear Him."

History of the Feast

The Visitation is mentioned only in Luke's Gospel, and Luke tells us that Mary stayed with her
cousin about three months, returning home just before Elizabeth gave birth. The angel Gabriel, as
we have seen, told Mary at the Annunciation that Elizabeth was six months pregnant, and Luke
seems to indicate that the Blessed Virgin departed for her cousin's home very soon after the
Annunciation. Thus, we celebrate the Annunciation on March 25 and the Birth of Saint John the
Baptist on June 24, about three months apart.
Yet we celebrate the Visitation on May 31—a date that doesn't make sense according to the
biblical narrative. Why is the Visitation celebrated on May 31?

While many Marian feasts are among the first feasts to have been celebrated universally by the
Church, East and West, the celebration of the Visitation, even though it is found in Luke's Gospel,
is a relatively late development. It was championed by Saint Bonaventure and adopted by the
Franciscans in 1263. When it was extended to the universal Church by Pope Urban VI in 1389, the
date of the feast was set as July 2, the day after the octave (eighth) day of the feast of the Birth of
Saint John the Baptist. The idea was to tie the celebration of the Visitation, at which Saint John
had been cleansed of Original Sin, to the celebration of his birth, even though the placement of the
feast in the liturgical calendar was out of sync with the account given by Luke. In other words,
symbolism, rather than chronology, was the deciding factor in choosing when to commemorate
this important event.

For close to six centuries, the Visitation was celebrated on July 2, but with his revision of the
Roman calendar in 1969 (at the time of the promulgation of the Novus Ordo), Pope Paul VI
moved the celebration of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the last day of the Marian
month of May so that it would fall between the feasts of the Annunciation and the Birth of Saint
John the Baptist—a time when Luke tells us that Mary would certainly have been with Elizabeth,
taking care of her cousin in her time of need.

The Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord:

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour
Because He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaid:
For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is His Name.
And His mercy is from generation until generations, to them that fear Him.
He hath showed might with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the lowly.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy:
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever