Hail, Mary, Full of Grace

When heaven interrupts ordinary life, everything changes.

Three months after learning she was pregnant, young Mary set off to see her cousin Elizabeth. You would think that after a long journey, a teenage girl at the end of her first trimester would be a little grumpy, possibly complaining about swollen ankles and feeling more than a little queasy. However, after a greeting with Zechariah, we find Mary talking about how blessed she was.

Elizabeth, for her part, reassured Mary that she was blessed and that her baby was special. She told Mary how her own baby had jumped in the womb, and asked how amazing it was that the mother of her Lord would visit her. Mary, full of grace as ever, stated that her soul magnified the Lord. She then talked about the Lord’s goodness, with her own mini-beatitudes.

She recognized that she was blessed and would be known as blessed for all generations to come. She talked about God’s mercy upon those who feared him, but that the proud would be scattered. She talked about the mighty being brought down while the lowly were exalted, and the hungry being filled with good things while the rich got nothing. This is truly an amazing young woman, and while, from a Protestant perspective, the Catholic veneration of her goes too far, she doesn’t get anything like the respect she deserves from Protestants who see her as just another name in the good book. There is so much we can learn from Mary, but we tend to skim over the introduction to Jesus’ life in favor of getting to the real meat and miracles.

There is one more thing to remember about Mary, and this visit in particular. She was in Elizabeth’s house for three months, and Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, the priest. As a priest, Zechariah would have known the Scriptures. He also had a vested interest in the life of the Messiah, which his unborn son was instrumental in. As someone with knowledge of Scripture, access to writings, and connections with people who also knew a great deal about the Scriptures, is it a stretch to believe he had been studying the prophecies concerning the Messiah?

He would likely have looked at the prophecies concerning the birth of Jesus, known of his life, and quite probably his end. If that were the case, Zechariah would have known that Jesus would not see out his days on earth with a peaceful end. I wonder how much of this he would have shared with Mary. The Bible doesn’t tell us one way or the other whether Mary knew what was to come, whether in part, fully, or not at all, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine her asking her cousin’s husband about the prophecies. Mary, ever full of grace, stayed faithful to the mission, and after three months with Elizabeth, she went back home again.

Prophecy footnote

² The Messiah born of a virgin — Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23; Luke 1:34–35