Magnificat: The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, July 2, 2025

The criminal act of tampering with the calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church by the scions of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is one of the great felonies of all time. The harmony and rhythm of the inherent order found in the calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church is laden with deep theological meaning and full of material for spiritual reflection and meditation. Such is the case with the feast that is celebrated today in the calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin, Saint Elizabeth, in the hill country of Judah.

The calendar of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church places feasts at times of the year for very specific reasons. Today’s feast, the Visitation, a mystery we meditate upon every day if we pray all fifteen decades of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary daily, is celebrated eight days after the birth of Saint John the Baptist, that is, on the day of the circumcision of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s cousin and precursor.

This is the day that Our Lady left the hill country of Judah to return to Nazareth for the final six months of her own pregnancy. Thus, the liturgical Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary commemorates the end of her period of visiting Saint Elizabeth, a period that had begun on April 2, which was eight days after Our Lady had been told the news of Saint Elizabeth’s pregnancy by Saint Gabriel the Archangel at the Annunciation. Thus, the actual day of the Visitation was April 2. The period of Our Lady’s visit lasted three months, meaning that the first trimester of her carrying the preborn Jesus was spent away from home helping her cousin prepare to deliver her own Divine Son’s precursor. The placement of this liturgical feast in the calendar of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination on May 31, therefore, makes no sense whatsoever (other than randomly selecting a Marian feast to close the Marian month of May).

God does nothing by accident or happenstance. Our Lady was visited by Saint Gabriel the Archangel on March 25, giving her perfect fiat to the will of the Father so as to enflesh the Son by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. She set off immediately for the hill country of Judah, a journey that took her eight days to complete. Upon arriving for her three month period of assisting Saint Elizabeth and Saint Zacharias, Our Lady heard Saint Elizabeth was inspired by the Holy Ghost to complete the first part of the Ave Maria had been begun by Saint Gabriel the Archangel eight days before. Saint Gabriel said, Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum; Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. . Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women. Saint Elizabeth said: Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. “Blessed art thou amongst women.” How can any Protestant say that the Angelic salutation given by Saint Gabriel to Our Lady and continued by Saint Elizabeth is unworthy of being on the lips of everyone who truly believes in the Sacred Divinity of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?  The exaltation of Our Lady as being the Mother of God and thus the Blessed Mother of us all is present in Saint Luke’s Gospel for all who have the honesty and the humility to see it and to recognize in Our Lady the very means by which our salvation was made possible.

Saint Elizabeth went on:

“And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me. For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” (Lk. 1:43-44)

The Church teaches us that it was at the moment Saint John the Baptist leapt for joy in his mother’s womb that he was freed of Original Sin. The moment of Saint John’s preborn ecstasy thus teaches us about the inviolability of all innocent human life. The preborn Saint John heard the voice of Our Lady, who was carrying within her the preborn Jesus, the One Whose precursor Saint John was meant to be. This should serve as a fundamental lesson to all Catholics everywhere about the inviolability of the fruit of mother’s wombs.

The God-Man placed Himself in total solidarity with every child in every mother’s womb when He was conceived as a helpless embryo in Our Lady’s womb by the power of the God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation. Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine: Et homo factus est. That both Saint Elizabeth, who knew that the fruit of Mary’s womb was her Lord, and Saint John the Baptist, were exultant over the fact of the Incarnation should remind us once more that the Incarnation changes everything about human existence–and that there is not one aspect of daily life that is not meant to be lived in the conscious and public recognition that the Word became Flesh to dwell amongst us and to win back for us on the tree of the Holy Cross what was lost for us on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. This is a lesson that the naturalists among us, ever eager to speak and act as though the Incarnation and the entirety of the Deposit of Faith are matters of complete indifference to social order, ought to remember.

Our Lady went on to proclaim her Magnificat, which is required under pain of mortal sin in most instances to be prayed every evening by all priests around the world near the close of vespers:   

My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because He as regarded the humility of His handmaid; for behold henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because He that is mighty, hath done great things for me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear Him.

He hath shewed might in 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 humble.

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 Abraham and his seed for ever. (Lk. 1: 46-55)

Dom Prosper Gueranger provided us with a superb commentary on the history of this joyful festival prior to an explication of the Epistle and the Gospel that is read in today’s offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: 

Our Lady’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth already engaged our attention while we were preparing for the Christmas festival. But it is only fitting to return again to an event so important in our Lady’s life; the mere commemoration of this mystery made on Ember Friday in Advent would be insufficient to bring forward all it contains of deep teaching and holy joy. Since in the course of centuries, the holy Liturgy has been gaining more and more completeness, it is but natural that this precious mine should come to be further opened in honor of the Virgin Mother. The Order of St. Francis, it would seem, as well as certain particular Churches, such as Rheims and Paris for example, had already taken the initiative, when Urban VI, in 1389, instituted today’s solemnity. The Pope counselled a fast on the vigil of the feast, and ordered that it should be followed by an octave; he granted for its celebration the same indulgences as Urban IV had, in the previous century, attached to the festival of Corpus Christi. The Bull of promulgation, stopped by the Pontiff’s death, was again taken up and published by Boniface IX, his successor on the Chair of Peter.

We learn from the Lessons of the Office formerly composed for this feast, that the end of its institution was, as Urban conceived it, to obtain the cessation of the schism then desolating the Church. The papacy, exiled from Rome for seventy years, had barely re-entered it, when hell, infuriated at a return which crossed all its plans, had taken revenge by ranging under two leaders the Flock of the one Sheepfold. So deep was the obscurity wherewith miserable intrigues contrived to cover the authority of the legitimate Shepherd, that numbers of Churches, in all good faith, began to hesitate, and ended at last in preferring the deceptive staff of a hireling. Thicker yet was the darkness to grow, till night should be so dense, that for a moment the conflicting mandates of three Popes would simultaneously spread through the world; while the Faithful, struck with stupor, would be at utter loss to discern accurately which was the voice of Christ’s true Vicar. Never had the Bride of the Son of God been in a more piteous situation. But Our Lady, to whom the true Pontiff had turned at the first rising of the storm, deceived not the Church’s confidence. During all those years while the unfathomable justice of the Most High let the powers of hell hold sway, she stood for the defense of holy Church, trampling the head of the old serpent so thoroughly under her victorious foot, that despite the terrific confusion he had stirred up, his filthy spume could not sully the faith of the people. Their attachment was steadfast to the unity of the Roman See, whosoever it might be, in this uncertainty, its veritable occupant. Thus the West, divided in fact, but, in principle, ever one and undivided, reunited herself spontaneously as soon as God’s moment came for the return of light. The hour having arrived for the Queen of Saints to assume the offensive, she would not content herself with merely re-establishing, at its former post, the army of the elect; hell now must expiate his audacity, by being forced to yield back to holy Church those conquests which for centuries had seemed his forever. The tail of the dragon had not yet ceased to whisk at Basle, when Florence had already beheld the heads of the Greek schism, the Armenians and Ethiopians, the cavilers of Jerusalem, of Syria, and of Mesopotamia, all compensating by their unhoped-for adhesion to the Roman Pontiff for the anguish just suffered in the West.

It was now to be shown that such a return of nations, in the very midst even of the tempest, was indeed the work of Her who had been called upon by the Pilot, half a century before, to succor the Bark of Peter. Even they of the factious assembly of Basle gave proof of this, in a way which has unfortunately been too much overlooked by historians who undervalue the high importance that liturgical facts hold in the history of Christendom. When about to separate, these last abettors of the schism devoted the forty-third session of their pretended council to the promulgation of this very feast of the Visitation, in the first establishment of which Urban VI had, from the outset, placed all his hoped. Notwithstanding the resistance of some of the more obstinate, the schism may, from that hour, be said to have ended. The storm was subsiding; the name of Mary, invoked thus by both sides, shone resplendent as the sign of peace amidst the clouds, (Genesis 9:12-17) even as the rainbow in its sweet radiance unites both extremities of the horizon. Look upon it, says the Holy Ghost, and bless him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness. It encompasseth the heaven about, with the circle of its glory: the hands of the Most High have displayed it. (Ecclesiasticus 43:12-13)

But, it may be asked, why was the feast of the Visitation specially chosen, more than any other, as the monument of restored peace? The answer seems to be suggested in the very nature of the mystery itself and in the manner of its accomplishment.

Here, more particularly, does Mary appear as the Ark of the Covenant, bearing within her the Emmanuel, the living Testimony of a more true reconciliation, of an alliance more sublime between earth and heaven, than that limited compact of servitude entered into between Jehovah and the Jews, amidst the roar of thunder. By her means, far better than through Adam, all men are now brethren; for He whom she hides within her is to be the First-born of the great family of the sons of God. Scarce is he conceived than there begins for him the mighty work of universal propitiation. Arise, then, O Lord, into thy resting place, thou and the Ark which thou hast sanctified, (Psalm 131:8) whence thine own sanctity will pour down upon our earth! During the whole of her rapid passage from Nazareth to the mountains of Judea, she shall be protected by wings of Cherubim jealously eager to contemplate her glory. Amidst his truest warriors, amidst Israel’s choirs of singing men, David conducted the figurative Ark from the house of Adinadab to that of Obed-edom; (2 Samuel 6) but better far, the escort deputed by the Eternal Father for this sacred Ark of the New Covenant, troops of the noblest princes of the heavenly phalanx.

Favored with benediction was that Levite’s house, while for three months it sheltered the Most High hidden on the golden propitiatory: more favored still, the home of the priest Zachary, harboring, for the same lapse of time, Eternal Wisdom enshrined in the Virginal womb, wherein that union, so ambitioned by his Love, had just been accomplished. Yet beneath Zachary’s roof, blessed as it was, the enemy of God and man was still holding one captive: the angelic embassy that had announced John’s miraculous conception and birth could not exempt him from the shameful tribute that every son of Adam must pay to the prince of death, on entering into this life. As formerly as Azotus, so now Dagon may not remain standing erect in face of the Ark. (1 Samuel 5) Mary appears; and Satan, at once overturned, is subjected to utter defeat in John’s soul, a defeat that is not to be his last; for the Ark of the Covenant will not stay its victories till the reconciliation of the last of the elect be effected.

Let us then hymn this day with songs of gladness; for this Mystery contains the germ of every victory gained by the Church and her sons: henceforth the sacred Ark is borne at the head of every combat waged by the new Israel. Division between man and his God is at an end, between the Christian and his brethren! The ancient Ark was powerless to prevent the division of the tribes; henceforth if schism and heresy do hold out for a few short years against Mary, it shall be but to evince more fully her glorious triumph at last. In all ages, because of Her, even as today and under the very eyes of the enemy now put to confusion, little ones shall rejoice, all shall be filled with benediction, and pontiffs shall be perfected. (Psalm 131:8-9) Let us join the tribute of our songs to John’s exulting gladness, to Elizabeth’s sudden exclamations, to Zachary’s canticle; therewith let earth re-echo! Thus is bygone days was the Ark hailed as it entered the Hebrew camp. Hearing their shout, the Philistines learned that help had come from the Lord; and seized with terror, they groaned aloud saying: Woe to us; for there was no such great joy yesterday and the day before: Woe to us! Verily this day, the whole human race, together with John, leaps for joy and shouts with a great shout; (1 Samuel 4:5-8) verily this day has the old enemy good reason to lament: the heel of the woman, (Genesis 3:15) as she stamps him down, makes his haughty head to wince for the first time: and John, set free, is hereby the precursor of us all. More happy are we, the new Israel, than was the old, for our glory shall never be taken away; never shall be wrested from us that sacred Ark which has led us dry-shod across the river, (Joshua 3, 4) and has levelled fortresses to the dust at its approach. (Joshua 6)

Justly then is this day, whereon an end is put to the series of defeats begun in Eden, the day of new canticles for a new people! But who may intone the hymn of triumph, save She to whom the victory belongs? “Arise, arise, O Debbora, arise, —arise and utter a canticle. (Judges 5:12) The valiant men ceased and rested in Israel, until Mary arose, the true Debbora, until a Mother arose in Israel. (Judges 5:7) It is I, it is I,” saith she, “that will sing to the Lord, I will sing to the Lord the God of Israel. (Judges 5:3) O magnify the Lord with me, as saith my grandsire David, and let us extol his Name together. (Psalm 33:4) My heart hath rejoiced, like that of Anna, in God my Savior. (1 Samuel 2:1) For even as in his handmaid Judith, by me he (Judith 13:11) hath fulfilled his mercy, so that my praise shall not depart out of the mouth of men who shall be mindful of the power of the Lord forever. (Judith 13:25, 31; 1 Samuel 15:11) For mighty is he that hath done great things in me; (Exodus 15:2-3) there is none holy as he. (1 Samuel 2:2) Even as by Esther, he hath throughout all generations saved those who feared him; (Esther 9:28) in the power of his arm, (Judith 9:11) he hath turned against the impious one the projects of his own heart, driving proud Amam out of his seat and uplifting the humble; the bow of the mighty is overcome, and the weak are girt with strength; the abundance of them that were rich hath passed to the hungry and they are filled; (1 Samuel 2:4-5) he hath remembered his people, and hath had pity on his inheritance. (Esther 10:12) Such, indeed, was the promise that Abraham received and our fathers have handed down unto us: and he hath done to them even as he had promised.” (Esther 13:15, 14:5)

Daughters of Sion and all ye who groan in the thraldom of Satan, the hymn of deliverance has sounded in our land! Following in Her train, who beareth within her the Pledge of alliance, let us form into choirs; better than Mary, Aaron’s sister, and by yet juster title, she leads the concerts of Israel. (Exodus 15:20-21) So sings she on this day of triumph, and the burthen of her song gathers into one all the victorious chants which, in the ages of expectation, preluded this divine canticle of hers. But the past victories of the elect people were but figures of that which is gained by our glorious Queen on this day of her manifestation; for she, beyond Debbora, Judith, or Esther, has truly brought about the deliverance of her people; in her mouth the accents of her illustrious predecessors pass, from the burning aspiration of the prophetic age to the calm ecstasy which denotes her being already in possession of the long expected God. A new era is meetly inaugurated by sacred chants: divine praise receives from Mary that character which henceforth it is never to lose, not even in eternity.

The preceding considerations have been suggested by the special motive which led the Church to institute this feast in the fourteenth century. Again, in our own day, has Mary shown that this date is indeed for her a day of victory. On the Second of July, in the year 1849, Rome was restored to the exiled Pontiff, Pius IX. (Feast of the Precious Blood, see post for previous day) But we should far exceed the limits of our present scope, were we to strive to exhaust the teachings of this vast mystery, the Visitation. Besides, some have been already given in our Advent volume; and others, more recently on the feast and octave-day of Saint John’s Nativity. What we mean to add further on this subject, is brought to light by the Epistle and gospel of the Mass given below . . . .

The Church introduces us into the depth of the mystery. What she has just been reading to us is the explanation of that word of Elizabeth’s which sums up the whole of to-day’s feast: ‘When thy voice sounded in mine ear, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.’ O voice of Mary, voice of the turtledove, putting winter to flight, and announcing springtime flowers and fragrance! At this sweet sound John’s soul, a captive in the darkness of sin, casts off the badge of slavery, and suddenly developing germs of highest virtues, appears as beautiful as a bride decked in nuptial array: and, therefore, how Jesus hastes unto this well-beloved soul! Between John and the Bridegroom, oh! what ineffable outpourings ! what sublime dialogue passes between them, from womb to womb of Mary and Elizabeth! In this happy meeting, the sight, the hearing, the voice of the mothers belong less to themselves than to the blessed fruit each bears within her; thus their senses are the lattices through which the Bridegroom and the friend of the Bridegroom see one another, understand one another, speak one to the other!

The animal man, it is true, understands not in this language. ‘Father,” the Son of God will soon exclaim: “I give thee thanks for that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones. Let him, therefore, that hath ears to hear, hear; but, Amen, I say unto you, unless ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor know its mysteries.’ Wisdom shall nevertheless be justified by her children, as the Gospel says. The simple-hearted in quest of light, with all the straightforwardness of humility, let pass unheeded those mocking shadows playing over the marshes of this world; they know that the first ray of the eternal Sun will disperse these phantoms, leaving emptiness before those who run in pursuit of them. These wise little ones already feed upon that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, having a foretaste, here below, of eternal delights.

Ineffably is John the Baptist experiencing all this. Accosted by the divine Friend who has been beforehand in seeking him, his soul at once awakens to full ecstasy. Jesus, on this side, is now making his first conquest; for it is to John that is addressed amongst all creatures (Mary of course excepted) the sacred nuptial-song uttered to the soul of the Word made Flesh, making his divine Heart throb with emotion. To-day the prophecy of the Magnificat was first uttered, and to-day also the divine union expressed by the Holy Ghost in the Canticle of Canticles is fully realized. Never more fully than on this happy day shall the sacred transports of the Spouse be justified; never shall they find a more faithful response! Let us warm ourselves at these celestial fires; let us join our enthusiasm to that of eternal Wisdom, who makes his first step, this day, in his royal progress towards mankind. Let us unite with our Lord in imploring the Precursor at last to show himself. Were it not ordered otherwise from on high, his inebriation of love would verily have made him at once break down the wall that held him from appearing, then and there, to announce the Bridegroom. For he knows that the sight of his countenance, preceding the face of the Lord himself, will excite the whole earth to transports; he knows that his own voice will be sweet when once it has become the organ of the Word calling the bride to him.

Together with Elizabeth let us extol, in the Gradual, the Blessed Virgin to whom we owe all these joys, and within whom love still encloses him whom the whole world could not contain . . .

Mary, having learned from the archangel that Elizabeth was about to become a mother, is preoccupied with the thought of the services that will soon be needed by her cousin and the infant; she, therefore, starts at once on her journey across the mountains, amidst which stands the house of Zachary. Thus does the charity of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14) act, thus does it press, when it is genuine. There is no state of soul, in which under the pretext of more exalted perfection, the Christian may be allowed to forget his brethren. Mary had just contracted the highest union with God; and our imagination might perhaps be inclined to picture her, as it were, in a state of powerlessness, lost in ecstasy during these days in which the Word, taking Flesh of her flesh, is inundating her in return with the floods of his Divinity. The Gospel, however, is explicit on this subject: it particularly says that it was in those days (Luke 1:39) even, that the humble Virgin, hitherto quietly hid in the secret of the Lord’s face, (Psalm 30:21) rose up to devote herself to all the bodily as well as the spiritual needs of a neighbor in such condition. Does that mean to say that works are superior to prayer, and that contemplation is not the better part? No, certainly not; for indeed never did Our Lady so directly and so fully adhere to God with her whole being as at this very time. But the creature when he has attained the summits of the unitive life, is all the more apt and fitted for exterior works, inasmuch as no lending of himself thereto, can distract him from the immovable center wherein he is fixed.

A signal privilege is this, resulting from that division of the spirit and the soul, (Hebrews 4:12) to which all attain not, and which marks one of the most decisive steps in the spiritual life; for it supposes a purification of man’s entire being so perfect, that in very truth he is no other than one spirit with the Lord; (1 Corinthians 6:17) it entails so absolute a submission of the powers, that without clashing one with the other, they yield, each in its particular sphere, obedience simultaneously to the divine breathing.

So long as the Christian has not yet crossed this last defile, defended with such obstinacy by nature to the last, so long as he has not yet won that holy liberty of the children of God, (Romans 8:21) he cannot possibly turn to man, without, in some way, quitting God. Not that he ought, on that account, to neglect his duties towards his neighbor, in whom God wishes us to see no other than Himself; but, nevertheless, blessed is he who (like Mary) loses naught of the better part, the whole he attends to his obligations towards others! Yet how few are such privileged souls! and what a delusion it is to persuade ourselves to the contrary!

We shall return to these thoughts on the day of Our Lady’s triumphant Assumption; but the Gospel to which we have just been listening makes it a duty for us, even now, to draw the attention of the reader to this point. Our Lady has especially on this feast a claim to be invoked as the model of those who devote themselves to works of mercy; and if to all it is by no means given to keep their spirit, at the same moment, more than ever immersed in God, all, nevertheless, ought constantly to strive to approach, by the practice of recollection and divine praise, to those luminous heights whereon their queen shows herself, this day, in all the plenitude of her ineffable perfections.  (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)       

The prayer composed by Dom Prosper Gueranger at the conclusion of his commentary on this great feast is worth repeating in its entirety:

Who is she that cometh forth beautiful as the morning rising, terrible as an army set in array. O Mary, this is the day on which thine exquisite brightness, for the first time, gladdens the earth. Thou bearest within thee the Sun of justice; and his early beams, striking first the mountain tops whilst the vales below are yet left in darkness, at once enlighten the Precursor, who is said to be the greatest ever born of woman. The divine Son, swift in his ascending course, will soon bathe the lowly valleys in his radiant fires. But how full of race and beauty are these his first gleams peering through the veiling cloud! For thou, O Mary, art the light cloud, the hope of earth, the terror of hell. Contemplating from afar, through its heavenly transparency, the mystery of this day, Elias, the father of prophets, and Isaias, their prince, did both of them descry the Lord. They beheld thee speeding thy way across the mountains and they blessed God; ‘for,’ saith the Holy Ghost, ‘when winter hath congealed the waters into crystal, withered the valleys, and consumed as with fire the green mountains, a present remedy to all is the speedy coming of a cloud.’

Haste, O Mary! Come thou to all of us; do not let the mountains alone, enjoy thy benign influence, bend thee down to those lowly, ignoble regions wherein the greater part of mankind but vegetates, helpless to scale the mountain heights; let thy kindly visit reach down even to the deepest abyss of human perversity wellnigh bordering on the gulf of hell; let the beams of saving life reach even there. Oh! would that from the thralldom of sin, from the plain where the vulgar throng is swaying to and fro, we were drawn to follow in thy train! How beauteous are thy footsteps along our humble pathways, how aromatic the perfumes wherewith thou dost inebriate earth this day! Thou wast all unknown, nay, thou was even an enigma to thyself, O thou fairest among the daughters of Adam, until thy first going forth led thee unto our poor hovels and manifested thy power. The desert, suddenly embalmed with heavenly fragrance, hails the passage, not of the figurative Ark, but of the ‘litter of the true Solomon.’ in these days of the sublime nuptials which he has vouchsafed to contract. What wonder, then, if at rapid pace thou dost speed across the mountains, since thou art bearing the Bridegroom who, as a giant, strideth from peak to peak.

Far different art thou, O Mary, from her who is portrayed in the sacred Canticle as hesitating, in spite of the heavenly call, to betake herself to active work, foolishly captivated by the sweets of mystic repose in such a way as to dream of finding it elsewhere than in the absolute good pleasure of the Beloved! Thou art not one, at the voice of the Spouse, to make difficulties about clothing thyself again with the garment of toil, of exposing thy feet, were it never so much, to be soiled within the dusty roads of the earth. Scarcely has he given himself to thee immeasurably as none else can know than, ever on thy guard against the mistake of remaining all absorbed in the selfish enjoyment of his love, thou thyself dost invite him to begin at once the great work which brought him down from heaven to earth: “Come, my Beloved, let us go forth into the fields, let us rise up early to see if the vineyards flourish, to hasten the budding of the fruits of salvation in souls; there it is, that I wish to be all thine.’ And leaning upon him, no less than he upon thee, without thereby losing aught of heavenly delights, thou dost traverse our desert; and the Holy Trinity perceiveth between Mother and Son sympathies, harmonious agreements, unknown until then even to thee; and the friends of the Bridegroom, hearing thy sweet voice, on their side also comprehend his love and partake in thy joy. With him, with thee, O Mary, ae after age shall behold sols innumerable who, swift-footed even as the roe and the young hart, will flee away from the valleys and gain the mountain heights where, in the warm sunshine, heaven’s aromatic spices are ever fragrant.

Bless, O Mary, those whom the better part so sweetly attracts. Protect that Order whose glory is to honour in a special manner thy Visitation. Faithful to the spirit of their illustrious founders they still continue to justify their sweet title by perfuming the Church on earth with the fragrance of that humility, gentleness and hidden prayer which made this day’s mystery so dear to the angels eighteen hundred years ago. Finally, O Lady, forget not the crowded ranks of those whom race presses, more numerous than ever nowadays, to tread in thy footsteps, mercifully seeking out every object of misery, teach them the way in which alone is possible to devote themselves to their neighbour without in any way quitting God; for the greater glory of god and the happiness of man multiply such faithful copies of thee. May all of us, having followed, in the degree measured out to us by him who divides his gifts to each one as he wills, meet together in our home yonder, to sing in one voice together with thee, an eternal Magnificat!  (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

This Magnificat of Our Lady can be ignored only at the great peril of one who says, albeit falsely as Protestantism is not Christianity (as Father Frederick Faber noted, there is no Christianity where there is no Mass), he follows Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but who believes that honoring His Blessed Mother is somehow un-Scriptural. “For behold henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” either means what it says or it does not. We must pray that those outside of the true Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, will make the Magnificat their prayer and come into the true Church, found today in the catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the ravenous wolves who dare to cast off dogmatic truths as they see fit to suit their own Modernist proclivities, to be devoted and totally consecrated sons and daughters of Our Lady, the woman who made possible our salvation and who was given to us by her Divine Son to be our Mother as He hung dying on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us.

Those of us who are Catholics have an obligation to meditate quite carefully on the Second Joyful Mystery, which we on the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin July 2.

We must meditate upon the selflessness of Our Lady, who thought nothing of making a journey immediately after receiving the news of the miraculous conception of the Word as Flesh in her own virginal and immaculate womb by the power of the Holy Ghost. We must have that same selflessness to perform both the Corporal and the Spiritual Works of Mercy no matter how much we are taxed physically as a result. If we are totally consecrated to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, then we know that she will use our unseen efforts and prayers and penances and sacrifices in ways that will be made manifest to us only in eternity. And we must learn from the Visitation that the assaults upon innocent human life in the womb demand our prayers and our attention as we seek to plant the seeds for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King as the ultimate fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart. For just as the fruit of Our Lady’s womb was recognized by Saint Elizabeth and by Saint John the Baptist, so must the world recognize the fruit of Our Lady’s womb as its King in every aspect of its life and social activity.

The great feast that we celebrate today beckons us to meditate upon the Joyful Mysteries of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary. Indeed, we should try to pray all fifteen decades of the Rosary every day, should we not? And Saint Louis de Montfort, the great apostle of True Devotion to Mary, gave us a wonderful prayer with which to start the mystery of the Rosary that comprises today’s glorious liturgical feast:

We offer you, Lord Jesus, this second decade in honour of the Visitation of your holy Mother to her cousin Saint Elizabeth. Through this mystery and the intercession of Mary we ask for a perfect love of our neighbour. . . .  

(After the decade is completed:) May the grace of the mystery of the Visitation come into me and make me truly charitable.

And what is true Charity?

It is to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all those outside of the true Church into her maternal bosom, something that the counterfeit church of conciliarism eschews, meaning that true Charity, the Charity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that beat within the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of Our Lady as It was formed out of her own Immaculate Heart, so full of that true Charity, is not be found therein.

The readings for the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary refers  to the “golden tongued” defender of the Holy Faith, a doctor of Holy Mother Church who was not very “ecumenical” in his denunciations of Judaism as a dead religion. Saint John Chrysostom reflected on today’s feast in honor of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as follows:

As soon as our Redeemer was come among us, He went with haste, while as yet He was in His mother's womb, to visit His friend John. And John, in the one womb, becoming conscious of the Presence of Jesus in the other womb, dashed himself impatiently against the narrow walls of his natural prison, as though crying out: I see the very Lord who hath given nature her bounds, and I wait not for the due season of my birth. There is no need for me to linger here till nine months are ended, for He That is Eternal is with me! I will break out of my dark cell; I will proclaim my full knowledge of many wonders. I am the sign. I will show that the Christ is here. I am the trumpet; let me peal forth the news that the Son of God is come in the flesh. Let me give my trumpet-note, let me bless my father's tongue, and make it to speak again. Let me give my trumpet-note, let me quicken my mother's womb.

Thou seest, O beloved, how new and how strange a mystery is here! John is not born, but by leaping he speaketh; he is yet unseen, and he giveth warning; he is not yet able to cry, but by his acts he is heard. He draweth not yet the breath of life, but he preacheth God. he seeth not yet the light, but he maketh known the Sun! He is not come out of the womb, but he hasteth to play the Fore-runner in the Presence of the Lord. He cannot restrain himself; he rebelleth against the bounds set by nature, and struggleth to break out of the prison of the belly. His longing is to herald the coming Saviour. He saith, as it were: Behold, the Deliverer cometh and am I to remain still bound to abide here? The Word cometh, that He may set right all things and am I still to tarry in prison? I will go forth. I will run before Him, and cry aloud to all men: “Behold the Lamb of God Which taketh away the sin of the world.”

But do thou tell us, O John, how it came to pass that while thou wast still in the darkness of thy mother's womb, thou didst see and hear? How didst thou behold the things of God? How didst thou leap and bound for joy? Great, saith John, is the mystery of that which taketh place here, far from the understanding of men are these doings. It is meet that I should do a new thing in nature for the sake of Him Who is making new things which are beyond nature. I see in the womb, because I see the Sun of righteousness in a womb. I hear, because I am coming as the herald of the Great Word. I cry out, because I espy the Only-begotten Son of the Father clad in Flesh. I bound for joy, because I see that He by Whom all things were made, hath taken upon Him the form of a servant. I leap, because I think of the Redeemer of the world being made Flesh. I run before His coming, and herald His approach unto you with this, as it were, my confession. (The Divine Office, Matins, Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)

Today’s Divine Office also includes a brief but nevertheless poignant account of the martyrdom of Saints Processus and Martinian, who are commemorated on this most joyful Marian feast day:

At what time Peter and Paul were kept in the Mamertine Prison, at the foot of the Tarpeian Rock, two of the gaolers, named Processus and Martinian, along with other forty, were moved by the preaching and miracles of the Apostles to believe in Christ, and were baptized in a spring which suddenly brake forth out of the rock. These men let the Apostles depart if they willed it. But Paulinus, Prefect of the soldiers, when he heard what was come to pass, strove to turn away Processus and Martinian from their purpose. And when he found that he but wasted time, he ordered their faces to be bruised and their teeth to be broken, with stones. Moreover, when he had had them led to the image of Jupiter, and they still boldly answered that they would not worship the gods, he caused them to be tormented on the rack, and white-hot plates of metal to be put to their flesh, and that they should be beaten with sticks. While they were suffering all these things they were heard to say only this one word Blessed be the Name of the Lord. They were afterwards cast into prison, and in a little while they were taken outside the city, and slain with the axe, upon the Aurelian Way. The Lady Lucina buried their bodies upon her own farm, upon the 2nd day of July, but they were afterwards brought into the City, and are buried in the Church of the Prince of the Apostles. (The Divine Office, Matins, July 2.)

Saints Processus and Martinian were as “ecumenical” as Saint John Chrysostom. They were Catholics, something that the “popes” and “bishops” of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are not.  Indeed, they mock the true Faith, making them the most uncharitable men on the face of this earth.

A blessed Feast of the Vistiation of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us.

Saint Zachary, pray for us.

Saints Processus and Martinian, pray for us.