Visitation: The Place of Delight and Rest

an ekphrastic poem

"Windsock Visitation" by Brother Mickey McGrath, OSFS, Visitation Monastery of Minneapolis

In honor of today’s feast of the Visitation.

When Mary stepped into the house a strong 
wind came with her, lifting the red ribbons 
that Elizabeth had hung near the door 

to catch the breeze and delight the eye.
They hung about her head like dancing flames, 
like a crown of fire. And, as she stepped 

into Elizabeth’s arms, the wind also 
caught up her star-spangled wrap and draped it 
around Elizabeth’s belly like a caress.

Their bulging bellies brushed as Elizabeth 
drew her close, Strong hands clasped strong shoulders. And 
Queenly Mary holds laughing Elizabeth 

like a ship tying up at her dock,  glad 
to have reached a safe port. Meeting 
Elizabeth’s broad grin with her own 

deeply pondered joy. Eyes deep as night 
gleaming with hopeful stars. Eyes that gazed up 
into heaven’s depths every night of her 

long journey— wondering, pondering: would 
she really be the first to behold 
the face of God? She, who heard the word 

of the messenger and believed that He 
was coming into the world. 
Her greeting is a blessing. And at her word 

she feels the leaping baby push against 
her own barely-felt roundness. Against 
the butterfly flutter that she can only 

just sense. The two boys, cousins, so close,
The forerunner sprinting ahead. The lamb 
following behind. This is the place 

of delight and rest, in the golden light 
of a summer afternoon when joy came 
to dwell in that most blessed house.

---

To me the poem still feels rough around the edges. I’ve made a few tweaks but am still dissatisfied. So, a work still in process, still feeling its way into being. I wrote it in 2020, I think, after stumbling across this gorgeous painting of Visitation. I no longer remember how I found the painting but I was able to track it down to belonging to the Visitation monastery in north Minneapolis.

The quote in the painting is from St Jane de Chantal, who (along with St Francis de Sales) was the founder of the Visitation order: This is the place of our delight and rest.

I really like the way that phrase pairs with the painting and makes it sing. The Delight is evident in the women's expressions. They're delighting in the presence of the other. That intimate, personal, face to face encounter, the nearness of the other. But then there’s also the Rest: the way when you are with someone you love you feel at rest in their company. Mary's journey has brought her to a place where she can rest. And Mary has brought to Elizabeth the One who is the source of all rest: the Lord of the Sabbath. And we also can find our rest in their presence, as we find rest in adoration, simply being in the Presence of the Beloved.

That idea of rest really calls to me. And of course for St Jane de Chantal that was very much the spirit of the Visitation sisters. It makes me think of a monastery as a place of rest, as a retreat from the world. And their vocation was to go out into the world, but to bring that rest and delight, that peace of Christ, with them to whoever they met.

The Vistiation sisters were to be a new type of religious life, one open to older women and those of delicate constitution, that would stress the hidden, inner virtues of humility, obedience, poverty, even-tempered charity, and patience, and founded on the example of Mary in her journey of mercy to her cousin Elizabeth. The order was established to welcome those not able to practice austerities required in other orders. Instead of chanting the canonical office in the middle of the night the sisters recited the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin at half-past eight in the evening. There was no perpetual abstinence nor prolonged fast.

The whole focus of the rule was that it should be easy to follow, that it would be a place that could welcome those who were not suited to a more austere asceticism. St Therese's sister Leonie, who tried and failed to enter Carmel with her sisters, ended up becoming a Visitandine sister.

***

So on today’s feast of the Visitation, I invite you into that place of delight and rest. The place where Mary and Elizabeth meet and laugh. Where John leaps for joy before the Lord. Where Mary sings her great and humble hymn of praise.

---

Here’s another poem to contemplate, much more carefully crafted than mine, a Sonnet for the Visitation by Malcolm Guite:

Here is a meeting made of hidden joys
Of lightenings cloistered in a narrow place
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.

And here’s a delightful Visitation Villanelle by Sarah O’Brien:

The baby leapt – tethered only by the cord.
The joy coursing through us! I shouted outright.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.

Already she faced her share of the sword
She who believed all God said would be, might –
All creation with me seemed to roar.

And here is Joyce Kilmer:

VISTITATION

THERE is a wall of flesh before the eyes
Of John, who yet perceives and hails his King.
It is Our Lady's painful bliss to bring
Before mankind the Glory of the skies.
Her cousin feels her womb's sweet burden rise
And leap with joy, and she comes forth to sing,
With trembling mouth, her words of welcoming.
She knows her hidden God, and prophesies.


Saint John, pray for us, weary souls that tarry
Where life is withered by sin's deadly breath.
Pray for us, whom the dogs of Satan harry,
Saint John, Saint Anne, and Saint Elizabeth.
And, Mother Mary, give us Christ to carry
Within our hearts, that we may conquer death.

---

Please share in the comments any Visitation poems you have written or discovered.