ACC ~ Luke 1 v42

ELIZABETH’S VOICE OF DEVOTION

BEDE: [Elizabeth is attributed] properly with a great voice because she recognized the great gifts of God … [and] she sensed that he whom she knew to be present everywhere was also present bodily there. Indeed, by a “great” voice is not to be understood so much a loud voice as a devoted one. She was not capable of praising the Lord with the devotion of a moderate voice. Being full of the Holy Spirit, she was on fire, harboring in her womb the one than whom no one of those born of woman would be greater. [1] She rejoiced that he had come there—he who, conceived from the flesh of a virgin mother, would be called, and would be, the Son of the Most High. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.4. [2]

ELIZABETH HERALDS CHRIST AS GOD

PRUDENTIUS:

Believe what says the angel who was sent

From the Father’s throne, or if your stolid ear

Catch not the voice from heaven, be wise and hear

The cry of aged woman, now with child.

O wondrous faith! The babe in senile womb

Greets through his mother’s lips the Virgin’s Son,

Our Lord; the child unborn makes known the cry

Of the Child bestowed on us, [3] for speechless yet,

He caused that mouth to herald Christ as God.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST 585-93. [4]

[1] Lk 7:28.

[2] CS 110:32**.

[3] Is 9:6.

[4] FC 52:24-25.

THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN JOHN, ELIZABETH AND MARY

ORIGEN: Elizabeth, who was filled with the Holy Spirit at that moment, received the Spirit on account of her son. The mother did not inherit the Holy Spirit first. First John, still enclosed in her womb, received the Holy Spirit. Then she too, after her son was sanctified, was filled with the Holy Spirit. You will be able to believe this if you also learn something similar about the Savior. (In a certain number of manuscripts, we have discovered that blessed Mary is said to prophesy. We are not unaware of the fact that, according to other copies of the Gospel, Elizabeth speaks these words in prophecy.) Mary also was filled with the Holy Spirit when she began to carry the Savior in her womb. As soon as she received the Holy Spirit, who was the creator of the Lord’s body, and the Son of God began to exist in her womb, she too was filled with the Holy Spirit. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 7.3. [1]

[1] FC 94:29.

THE FRUIT OF MARY’S WOMB

BEDE: “Blessed is the fruit of your womb”—since through you we have recovered both the seed of incorruption and the fruit of our heavenly inheritance, which we lost in Adam. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPELS 1.4. [1]

[1] CS 110:33*.