Today is the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. Who was St Elizabeth? She was the mother of St John the Baptist and wife of the priest Zechariah, but what else do we know about her? Very little. St Luke just identifies her as the elderly “kinswoman” of the Blessed Virgin. (Lk. 1:36)

Yes, but what kind of “kinswoman”? We want to know more about this wonderful relationship between the Mother of the Lord and the Mother of John the Baptist. It was clearly a close and affectionate relationship because the Virgin not only traveled to share her good news, but she went there to be with Elizabeth for the birth of John the Baptist. Do the math: when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary he says Elizabeth is six months into her pregnancy. Then Luke tells us Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months (Lk. 1:56)

In my research for The Secret of the Bethlehem Shepherds  I came across a wonderful book by Sabine Huebner– a German scholar who studies ancient scraps of Egyptian papyri. These are letters, invoices, personal notes–all sorts of fragments and scraps from the ancient world. She pieces together information about ordinary life from these details, and one of the bits of information is the fact that women of the ancient world would regularly travel long distances to be with loved ones for the birth of a child. Mary’s 100 mile journey from Nazareth to Judea to visit Elizabeth would have been not only possible, but probably she joined one of the regular pilgrim caravans that went from Nazareth to Jerusalem on a regular basis. We see the Holy Family joining one of these caravans in Luke 2.

So much for the journey itself. What about Mary’s relationship to Elizabeth and Zechariah? The Protoevangelium of James (and other ancient traditions) situate Mary’s birth and the home of Anna and Joachim in Jerusalem near the temple. When you go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem you will find the home of St Anne, and thus the birthplace of Mary to the North side of the Temple Mount near the Lion’s Gate. The Protoevangelium tells the tale of the girl Mary being part of the temple community and that the priests were instrumental in arranging her marriage to St Joseph.

Now comes the speculation. We know that St Elizabeth and Zechariah were “kinsfolk” of Mary. We have no basis for identifying that relationship more specifically because Hebrew, Aramaic and koine Greek do not have specific words for relatives as we do in English. There are no words to specify “aunt” “uncle” “nephew” “niece” “cousin” and so forth. The general term “kinfolk” is all we have. However, it would make perfect sense to conclude (speculatively) that Elizabeth was the sister of St Anne and therefore, the Virgin’s aunt.

We have a hint in an ancient Egyptian tradition that the Virgin Mary was orphaned by the age of six. It was natural for extended family to take care of an orphan, and it would seem fitting and natural for the childless Elizabeth and Zechariah to adopt the orphaned girl and for Zechariah, as priest in the temple, (remembering that Mary’s parents Joachim and Anna lived virtually next to the temple and were part of the wider temple community) to arrange for Mary to be brought up within that wider temple family.

If this is the case, then the Visitation is not only Mary going to visit some distant “kinswoman” but her going to visit her aunt and adoptive mother and father.

I have put these details together with many other fragments in my book The Secret of the Bethlehem Shepherds which was written a few years ago during my sabbatical in Jerusalem.

In the meantime, here is a poem I have written which is part of a cycle of poems on the mysteries of the rosary:

The child, submerged in the tiny ocean

of the womb, hears again the mother’s voice,

and a wordless wave of emotion

swells and lifts him up, making him rejoice.

He stirs again— restless, he rolls over

as if reaching for a friend or absent lover.

 

The old woman, sensing his joy

lays quiet hands on her swollen womb

as if to cradle and nurse her hidden boy.

As he moves, she wonders what will become

of him when she dies. What strange path on earth

could match the startling strangeness of his birth?

 

And then, as the young girl’s greeting is heard,

the child within leaps up as if to dance.

He flips and turns, and kicks back twice as hard,

as he recognizes the presence

of the cosmic cousin who rests in the womb

like a lamb waiting in a darkened room.

 

The women embrace, weep, laugh and cling tight.

but in the corners of their mind prowls

a beastly premonition of the the night—

Beneath their abundant joy a foul fiend growls

that after their worshipping words are spoken

young blood will be shed and bodies broken.