I. The grace of the Holy Ghost does not admit a long delay: it requires a faithful correspondence, and exacts a ready resolution. And Mary, docile to the impulsions of the Holy Ghost, immediately corresponds to God.

   As soon as she conceives in her womb the Redeemer of me, she is ready to satisfy His desire, of doing good to mankind, and destroying sin.

   God wished to sanctify John the Forerunner chained with original sin, manifest his Son's glory and power since the first moment of his Incarnation, and fill the two happy Mothers with a new joy and new graces. And the gentle Maiden. quite full of God's love and of charity for her neighbor, notwithstanding the difficulties of the way, her youth, the delicacy of her sex, her present condition of Mother of God's Son, soon leaves her solitary abode of Nazareth in Galilee, and undertakes the long and laborious journey as far as Hebron on the mountains of Judea.

   My soul, how many good inspirations hast thou overwhelmed in thee, to which perhaps particular designs of God were attached for his glory, thy salvation, and the profit of thy neighbor!...

   Look: Elizabeth advanced in years is with child; she wants a confident to help and console her. And the amiable Virgin, who in love and beauty exceed those of the Seraphin, does not delay in responding, she does not go slowly on her journey, but with haste. The Charity of her neighbor is a strong impulse to her.

   God's love, when it reigns in our hearts, is never idle, it always excites our soul to the good of our neighbor, regardless of our own troubles; for the love of God and the love of our neighbour is one same love, which turns now to the cause now to the effects, now to the Creator now to creatures.

   This only virtue guides and animates Mary, not the love of distraction and pleasure, not the desire of seeing and be seen, that curiosity and ostentation that are, not to say more, the frequent motives of the visits we pay. Imitate, my soul, Mary's true and fervent charity: be thou put to confusion and acknowledge thou hast not God's true love.

   My divine Mother of love, show me also that abundant charity of thine, have pity on me, the most unhappy creature, who has so many times resisted God. Inflame me with thy holy love, bind me strongly with thy chain to love God above all things, and my neighbor as myself.

 

   II. O, how many virtues in this Mary's journey! O, her deep humility, that does not allow her to consider her great dignity, the infinite difference between the Son she bears and the son of Elizabeth! Alas! the handmaid of the Lord does not know those reservations of high life, those whimsical laws the vanity of the world gets so exactly observed, and that self-love has imagined, introduced and exacts so severely.

   Consider how Mary saluted Elizabeth. True charity anticipates other people's wishes, without any temporal interest. Had not divine charity preceded us, and did it not precedes us every day, would we have known God? would we think of Him?... The salutation of Mary, her voice made organ of the Word of God, is followed by the greatest miracle: Jesus, from his Mother's womb, sanctifies the soul of John, who leaps for joy in his mother's womb, and fills Elizabeth with the Holy Ghost. Because Christ manifested the power of his divinity first for other creatures, for his own Mother, and then for himself. Likewise, the presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar works the most wonderful effects on the truly faithful.

   Learn, o my soul, that only by means of Mary thou canst obtain wath thou expectest from Heaven. The first grace communicated to men by the Word made flesh, he granted it from the womb and at the voice of Mary.

   O Mother of graces, how powerful thy voice is! Make my heart hear it, or at least make thy Son hear it in my behalf! O Holy Virgin, how can I worthily praise and celebrate thee? I will learn that from Elizabeth, and I will, with her, cry out with a loud voice as long as I live: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!

   How dare heresy blame the honors we pay to God's Mother, if the Holy Ghost inspired them, and they are inseparable from those we must pay to the Son?

 

   III. Elizabeth continues: And whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? Elizabeth recognizes the greatness of Mary's Son and calls him her Lord... Have we the same feelings for Jesus Christ when he visits us? Do his divine presence and his grace in the adorable Sacrament of his Body and Blood imprint in us the same transports of joy, faith, and humility?

   Then, Elizabeth by divine light recognizes in Mary the Mother of God, and adds: Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken of to thee by the Lord. Everything shall be accomplished in due time.

   Then, Mary, overfull of light and grace, gratitude and love, with a soul truly humble, faithful to her God's graces, penetrated with his mercier, sang that divine canticle of gratitude and love, of prophecy and perfect praise of God's attributes. She instructs us about the present and prophesies of herself what will happen with all generations: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. She remembers the good that God did in the past; 'He hath showed might in his arm, He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, He hath put down the mighty from their seat'. She foretells the future and the faith in the duration of the promises to the people of God world without end: 'And his mercy is from generation to generation to them that fear him... As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever'.

   My soul, when the false brightness and the delusion of human greatness allure thee,  recognize that God alone is great, and attribute everything to his glory. When the blandishments of pleasures endeavour to fascinate thee, think that in God alone there is a steadfast certainly, pure and lasting pleasure. When the poison of praises, or the circumventions of self-love bewitch thee, return to thy nothingness, and recall in thy heart what Mary could not do; the humiliating memory of thy sins.

   O Mary, from this moment thou showest thyself true Mother of graces, and from this moment I hope, by the virtue of this Mystery of thy Rosary, that thou wilt grant me the grace of loving Jesus Christ much, and of saving my soul; for thou art the universal Dispenser of graces, and therefore the Hope of all my Hope. I thank God for having made me understand that I must save myself principally through the merits of Jesus Christ and then through thy intercession.

 Pray for me Mary, and recommend me to thy Son. Thy prayers have no refusal: they are prayers of a Mother to a Son who loves thee so much. Thou knowest my miseries and necessities better than I, neither do I know what graces I want most. I give myself up to thy hands, I trust to thee, and thou hast to save me. So be it.

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