It is to this house that we see S. Mary hastening, sure of finding there a heart in which she can confide.  She “entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth.”  We are not told what the words of her salutation were, but no doubt it was the customary Jewish salutation of peace.  There could have been no more appropriate salutation exchanged between these two in whose souls was abiding the peace of a perfect possession of God.  The will of God to which they had been accustomed to offer themselves all their lives was being accomplished through them in unexpected ways; but it found them as ready of acceptance as they had been in any of the ordinary duties of life wherein they had been accustomed to wait upon God.  We may seem sometimes to go beyond Holy Scripture in our interpretations of feelings and thoughts which we are sure must have been those of the actors in the drama of salvation unfolded to us in the Scriptures; but are we not entitled to infer from God’s actions a good deal of the nature of the instruments He uses?  Are we not quite safe in the case of S. Mary in the deduction from the nature of her vocation of the spiritual perfection to attribute to her?  Does not God’s use of a person imply qualities in the person used?  It is on this ground that I feel that we are quite safe in inferring the spiritual attitude of S. Mary and of S. Elizabeth from the choice God made of them to be the instruments of His purpose of redemption.

But we are not inferring, we have the record with us, when we think of the joy of the mothers transcended in the joy of the children.  The unborn Forerunner becomes conscious of the approach of Him of whom he is to say later:  “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”; and there is an instantaneous movement that can only be that of recognition and worship.  The movement of the child is at once understood and translated by S. Elizabeth:  “And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.  And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”

In the presence of such joy and such sanctity we feel that our proper attitude is the attitude of adoring wonder that S. Elizabeth expresses.  We worship our hidden Lord as the unborn prophet worships Him.  We have no question to ask, nor curiosity at the mode of God’s action.  We are quite content to accept His action as it is revealed to us in Scripture; a revelation of the divine presense in humanity which has been abundantly verified in all the history of the Church.  That verification in experience—­a verification that we ourselves can repeat—­is worth infinitely more than all the argument that the centuries have seen.

“Blessed art thou among women,” S. Elizabeth cries; and in doing so she is but repeating the words of the angel of the Annunciation.  This word, too, we presently hear S. Mary taking up, and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost saying:  “From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.”