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The gospel today begins with a scene everyone can understand: A journey.
“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste…”
She has just been told that she is to be the Mother of God. And rather than keeping this news to herself, or wondering
how she will cope, she sets out on a journey, to visit her cousin, Elizabeth — and we have “The Visitation.”
Too often, we think of the Blessed Mother as a quiet, serene, passive figure. But today, I’d like to ask you to think of her
differently. Mary, in fact, is a person of action, on the move. This is a woman who is going places. She is a woman on a
journey — constantly, by necessity, traveling. After this journey to see Elizabeth, we next find Mary embarking on a
difficult trip, while pregnant, to Bethlehem.
Then, she is on the move again, fleeing to Egypt, to escape death. We meet her again, journeying to Jerusalem, where her son goes missing – and we follow her as she goes in search of Him.
We can only imagine what other travels she took in the course of her life … but we can’t forget the most difficult of all, as she walked with her son to Calvary.
Today, on this feast, we celebrate her ultimate journey – her Assumption into heaven. The woman who spent so much of her life setting out in haste, searching, fleeing – finally is given a place of rest, a place “prepared by God,” as Revelation puts it. This day, we honor that, and honor how God has “looked with favor on his lowly servant.”
Though she has left this world, Mary is not removed from it. As our mother and our intercessor, she remains close to us.
All of us, like Mary, are on a journey. All of us are traveling to places we may not understand, to destinations we cannot
see. This is life. We ask Mary to help guide us on our way.
The road is long. The journey isn’t easy through this. ”our exile,” this “vale of tears.” We pray to have the trust and
courage to travel whatever road we must take – just as Mary did.
Like us, Mary was often in a hurry. We pray for her companionship as we ourselves “set out in haste” to all the places
we need to be. And we turn our hearts to this woman “full of grace,” imploring her to “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Because we are all on a journey.
And we have so much further to go.

Fr. Tony