The Visitation and the Magnificat

General Audience

On Wednesday, 5 February 2025, in the Paul VI Hall, the Holy Father had his catechesis on the Visitation and the Magnificat read by Fr Pierluigi Giroli.

I would like to apologize, because with this heavy cold it is difficult for me to speak. Therefore, I have asked my brother to read the Catechesis. He will read it better than me.
Hereafter, Fr Pierluigi Giroli:

Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

Today we will contemplate the beauty of Jesus Christ our hope in the mystery of the Visitation. The Virgin Mary visits Saint Elizabeth; but it is above all Jesus, in his mother’s womb, who visits his people (cf. Lk 1:68), as Zechariah says in his hymn of praise.

After the astonishment and wonder at the Angel’s announcement to her, Mary arises and sets out on a journey, like all those who are called in the Bible, because “the only act by which a human being can respond adequately to the self-revealing God is that of unlimited readiness” (H.U. von Balthasar, Vocation, Rome 2002, 29). This young daughter of Israel does not choose to protect herself from the world; she does not fear dangers and the judgements of others, but goes out towards other people.

When we feel loved, we experience a force that sets love in motion; as the apostle Paul says, “the love of Christ controls us” (2 Cor 5:14), it drives us, it moves us. Mary feels the pull of this love, and goes to help a woman who is her relative, but also an elderly woman who, after a long wait, is welcoming an unhoped-for pregnancy, difficult to deal with at her age. But the Virgin also goes to Elizabeth to share her faith in the God of the impossible and her hope in the fulfilment of his promises.

The encounter between the two women has a surprising impact: the voice of Mary, “full of grace”, as she greets Elizabeth, elicits a prophecy from the child inside the elderly woman’s womb, and inspires her to make a two-fold blessing: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:42), as well as a beatitude: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (v. 45).

Faced with the recognition of the messianic identity of her Son and her mission as mother, Mary does not speak of herself but of God, and raises a prayer filled with faith, hope and joy, a canticle that resounds in the Church every day, during the prayer of Vespers: the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55).

This praise to God the saviour, which gushed forth from the heart of his humble servant, is a solemn memorial that synthesizes and fulfils the prayer of Israel. It is interwoven with biblical references, a sign that Mary does not want to sing “apart from the choir” but to tune in with the forefathers, exalting her compassion for the humble, the little ones that Jesus would later proclaim “blessed” in his preaching will (cf. Mt 5:1-12).

The prominent presence of the paschal motif also makes the Magnificat a hymn of redemption, which has as its backdrop the memory of the liberation of Israel from Egypt. The verbs are all in the past, imbued with a memory of the love that lights up the present with faith and illuminates the future with hope: Mary sings of the grace of the past, but she is the woman of the present who carries the future in her womb.

The first part of this canticle praises God’s action in Mary, a microcosm of the people of God who adhere fully to the covenant (vv. 46-50); the second ranges from the work of the Father in the macrocosm of the history of his children (vv. 51-55), through three key words: memory, mercy, promise.

The Lord, who bent over the humble Mary to fulfil “great things” in her and make her the mother of the Lord, began to save his people starting from the exodus, remembering the universal blessing promised to Abraham (cf. Gen 12:1-3). The Lord God who is forever faithful, showered an uninterrupted stream of merciful love “from age to age” (v. 50) upon the people loyal to the covenant, and now manifests the fullness of salvation in His Son, sent to save the people from their sins. From Abraham to Jesus Christ and the community of believers, the Passover thus appears as the hermeneutical category for understanding every subsequent liberation, up to that realized by the Messiah in the fullness of time.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us ask the Lord today for the grace to be able to wait for the fulfilment of every one of His promises; and to help us to welcome Mary’s presence in our life. By following her example, may we all discover that every soul that believes and hopes “conceives and brings forth the Word of God” (Saint Ambrose, Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, 2:26).
 

L'Osservatore Roman
5 February 2025