In the Gospel account of the Visitation there is no mention of the weariness of Mary. We are not told that her cousin invited her into the house to rest and take food. Mary, because she had undertaken the journey under the impulse of God's Holy Spirit, feels no fatigue. On the contrary she stands there, with her eyes lighted up with happiness and sings of the greatness of her God and breaks out repeatedly into acts of gratitude.
When activity is born of mere natural impulse, when it is the expression of a mere natural desire for change and excitement, it leaves the soul, after the spasm has passed, enfeebled and exhausted. This stands to reason. The activity had the support of only natural means; it was held together by the novelty of the work or by the feeling of one's own importance or by the natural satisfaction one felt in at last being on the road to achievement.
Then, when the spell of activity ends, the soul is thrown back on itself. Life at once becomes dull and boring and the tendency is to look for some other distraction or relaxation. Instead of seeking God in earnest prayer, the soul, at such a time, will consider itself due for some compromise with its inordinate affections. It thinks it must restore its energy by some form of selfindulgence.
Whatever may be said by way of defending this attitude and a fair defense can sometimes be made it certainly is not the attitude of Mary in the Visitation. If she felt fatigue, and it is reasonable to think so, she betrays no sign of it. If she felt hungry, she is in no hurry to satisfy her hunger. The fact is that she is preoccupied with something immeasurably more important; her mind is steeped in God, her heart burns with divine love, and so it is only in God and in speaking of God and in singing God's praises that she can find the restoratives she needs.
It is very possible to be, almost unknowingly, slaves to creature comforts and satisfactions. If you are tired, do you lie down instinctively to rest, without giving a thought to the possibility of any other course? Perhaps you should forego this rest; perhaps God asks you to make a sacrifice of it. When the impulse takes you, do you always reach for chewing gum or candy? Are you "at a loose end" if the radio or television goes wrong, if you have not the cinema or theater to turn to? So easily can these sources of natural satisfaction be multiplied, especially in our day, that we come to take them for granted and forget that they may well serve as a means of selfdenial.
Anyhow, Our Blessed Lady, in her weariness after the long and dangerous journey, found her comfort in God alone. It is a calamity that many of us and we who are jealous of our name as earnest Catholics still fight shy of turning to God, to the tabernacle, to Mary herself, when we are weary or tired. The fact is that if our activity begins in God, if it is informed throughout by a supernatural motive, it will not suffer that feeling of chagrin and soreness of mind that so often are evident where the person concerned has worked from only a natural motive.
And even if this disappointed reaction sets in, the truly supernatural person will know where to seek and find the remedy. He will not proceed to pour out his energy on natural gratifications, for he will have traveled with Mary across the hill country and he will have carefully observed that in her hour of fatigue Mary's refreshment was found in God alone.
Summary:
1. Mary went "with haste" the double danger of overactivity and shirking activity through spiritual selfishness.
2. The Visitation and the spirit of joyousness.
3. When depressed, when exhausted after hard work undertaken for God, in God does the soul find its refreshment.
Thought:
"In a heart united to God it is always springtime." (Cure of Ars.)