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 for 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 act, thus does it press, when it is genuine…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 that the humble Virgin, hitherto quietly hidden in the secret of the Lord’s face, rose up to devote herself to all the bodily as well as the spiritual needs of a neighbor in such condition. This does not mean to say that works are superior to prayer, and that contemplation is not the better part; for, indeed, never did our Lady so directly and so fully adhere to God with her whole being as at this time…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 although it is not given to all equally to keep their spirits immersed in God, yet ought they 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…

Elizabeth’s words sums up the whole of today’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 springtide 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 dialogues pass between them from womb to womb of Mary and Elizabeth! Admirable mothers! Sons yet more admirable! 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!

Liturgical Year, XII, Book III