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May 31, 2024
Assuming that the Annunciation and the Incarnation took place about the vernal equinox, Mary left Nazareth at the end of March and went over the mountains to Hebron, south of Jerusalem, to visit her cousin Elizabeth, because her 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 John, Christ's Forerunner.Mary visits Elizabeth:
During those days Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed* that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
- Luke 1:39-45
The event is related in Luke 1:39-57. Feeling the presence of his Divine Savior, John, upon the arrival of Mary, leaped within the womb of his mother Elizabeth; he was then filled with the grace of God.
St. Joseph may have accompanied Mary, returned to Nazareth, and when, after three months, he came again to Hebron to take his wife home, the apparition of the angel, mentioned in Matthew 1:19-25, may have taken place to end the tormenting doubts of Joseph regarding Mary's maternity. (Principal source - Catholic Encyclopedia - 1913 edition)
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(Artwork ----- Visitation: Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503 - Oil on wood, 232 x 146 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi)
