Mary and the Economy of the Gift
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
Advent 2021: Responding to God’s Call and Growing in Community
This Advent, our leadership and writing teams are reflecting on the Visitation—Mary’s visit to St. Elizabeth while they were pregnant with Jesus and St. John the Baptist. Click here to read more.
The Visitation is a familiar scene to Catholics, who reflect upon it when we pray the second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. In our mind, we paint the picture of Mary traversing the “hill country in haste” and coming to the door of “the house of Zechariah,” greeting her aged cousin, Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-40). Elizabeth is filled with joy at this most august visitation, as is the babe within her womb, who dances as Elizabeth proclaims, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42). Elizabeth then expresses a feeling of unworthiness that Mary should visit her: “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43).
Mary’s eager willingness to share in the joys and sufferings of Elizabeth’s geriatric pregnancy vividly demonstrates a forgetfulness of self that opens the door for an authentic transfiguration of Elizabeth’s heart (see 2 Corinthians 3:18).
Old Testament Echoes
Reminiscent of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16:1) and Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29:31), Zechariah and Elizabeth were unable to conceive a child. During Biblical times, infertility was viewed as a disgrace and often blamed on the woman. Sadly, this perspective is still present today in some circles, where infertility is looked down upon. This attitude only adds weight to an already burdensome cross an infertile woman bears as she feels betrayed by her own body and may foster resentment toward it.
We can imagine Elizabeth being in such an emotional state: her fertile years long behind her, her sentiment toward her barren womb and “breasts that never nursed” (Luke 23:29) moving from resentment to reluctant resignation in her advanced years. Then, the miraculous happens: Elizabeth conceives a son. She proclaims, “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others” (Luke 1:25).
Mary learns of her cousin’s miraculous conception from the angel Gabriel. After the angel declares her own miraculous conception, that she will bear the Son of God, the angel said, “Behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month of her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:36-37). Rejoicing in this miracle, the young, pregnant Mary immediately embarks on her 90-mile solo trek to Judean hill country to visit her cousin.
Rejoicing and Weeping
In classic Catholic “both/and” fashion, solidarity with others is not limited to the good times or the bad times; it demands that we share in both, as St. Paul instructs us in his Letter to the Romans. Mary rejoices in the miracle bestowed upon her cousin and she desires to share the suffering of her pregnancy. Like most mothers in their second trimester, Elizabeth would suffer with various gastrointestinal issues, edema, hot flashes, back pain, and moodiness. And, with the increasing weight of John, her normal easy stride would transform into a waddle. Mary, while enduring the natural discomforts of the first trimester of her pregnancy (replete with morning sickness, moodiness, food aversions, and excessive tiredness), committed herself to entering into the messiness of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, from the joy of conceiving to the distress of carrying the child for nine months.
By entering into the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary does two things: First, she willfully participates in Elizabeth’s pregnancy experience. Here already, in her first recorded action after the Annunciation, Mary reflects our Lord’s total animation of her actions by becoming vulnerable in solidarity with her cousin. Second, by carrying our Savior within her womb, Mary as Theotokos (“God-bearer”) enacts a kind of Incarnation, as her presence affords Elizabeth and John the opportunity to bear witness to the coming of their Savior. These dynamics of multidirectional acts of self-gift make present the Kingdom of God in an obscure part of the Judean hill country.
An Invitation for Self-Gift
What we see in the Visitation is what Pope St. John Paul II called the economy of the gift, inscribed on creation from the very beginning by its loving God. At the heart of this economy of love, according to St. John Paul II, is “entrustment”: Each and every person represents a gift that God entrusts us with. The proper reception of such a gift is a corresponding gift of self, given out of love. When we respond to God’s gift of love in another person with our own gift of self in love, the late pontiff tells us, we are “drawn up into the mystery of God by the fact that [our] freedom is subjected to the law of love, and love creates interpersonal communion.”
This economy of the gift is precisely what we witness in the Visitation. Mary learns of Elizabeth’s pregnancy and recognizes the gift God is offering to her in the persons of Elizabeth and her child. Accordingly, she responds through her own gift of self, rushing to rejoice with and aid her cousin. In turn, Elizabeth reciprocates the gift of self as she rejoices in the coming of her Savior and His Mother.
Our eagerness to share in the joys and sufferings of others expresses true vulnerability that opens us to the reception of the gift present in the other, making true solidarity possible. In this way, we set the economy of gift in motion, for we not only bear Christ to others as Mary did to her cousin and nephew, but we also invite others to reciprocate the gift of self. This Advent season and beyond, let us strive to imitate Mary by receiving all those we encounter as the gift of God they truly are.
Vanessa Crescio is an accountant with the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. She earned an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, an MTS from Newman University, and worked in the real estate and banking industries prior to serving in church management roles at the parish and diocesan levels. She is interested in thinking through co-responsibility in the Church and developing leadership programs to form Catholics to serve the Church with not only their knowledge, skills, and abilities but with the servant heart of Christ. Read more of her writing at FRESHImage, and follow her on Instagram.