With solicitude, Mary gets up to go to Elizabeth, to share with her the greeting of joy she received from Gabriel, when he announced the birth of Jesus. At Mary’s greeting, even the child that Elizabeth has in her womb leaps for joy. Mary now brings her greetings to us to make us rejoice in her own joy, that of one who knows he is reached and transformed by the grace of God, whom she calls everyone to a new life. This joy, in the light of the Word of God proposed in this liturgy, is then colored with special motifs. The Apocalypse announces that it is the joy of a childbirth. Behind her image of a woman in childbirth we can glimpse a text from Isaiah, which compares the people of God, Israel, to a woman who, however, gives birth only to wind (cf. Is 26,17-18). Our efforts, even though they go through the travail of long gestations, are often inconclusive, do not bring salvation, do not generate a new humanity. But now finally the woman, a symbol not only of the virgin Mary, but of the entire people of God who is reflected in her, gives birth to a son destined to reign forever. In fact, he will put all her enemies under her feet and the last enemy to be annihilated will be death. The dragon of the Apocalypse will not only fail to prevent us from giving birth to good, but we will even put it under our feet. We too, like Mary, will reign forever with her son, conquerors of death and all evil.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey