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Gospel Reflection – Saturday, May 31, 2025
The Hospitality of God
“Shout for joy,” says today’s reading from Zephaniah.
“The child leaped in my womb,” says Elizabeth.
“My spirit rejoices in God,” says Mary.
Leaping for joy—physically—might be something only the youngest among us can actually do. But we’ve all felt that sudden rush in the heart, that inner leap that comes with deep, overwhelming joy. John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb. And it’s very possible that Jesus, too, leapt with joy in Mary’s womb in that moment of such intense beauty.
This encounter is a moment of mutual hospitality among four people.
Elizabeth is blessed and honored, because, as Saint John of Ávila once said, “the Lord visits her home.”
John, still unborn, is for the first time in the presence of the Lamb he will one day proclaim.
Mary is fully aware of the amazing saving work of the Lord, under the shadow of the Spirit, announcing salvation for the poor, the afflicted, the hungry.
And the child in her womb stands at the center of this incredible moment—the embrace of two women, carrying the promise of salvation.
In that embrace, the whole history of salvation is summed up.
The God who chooses the unlikely and the small, the God who can turn the impossible into undeniable truth.
The fulfillment of all promises comes through the tiny body of a young girl.
The end of sin and death.
The incredible, free hospitality of God, who enters our world, who wants to be received, and at the same time becomes our home.
In the Letter to the Romans, offered today as an alternate reading to Zephaniah, we are given a list of concrete attitudes and actions—a reflection of the embrace between Mary and Elizabeth. These are the ways we, as Christians, are called to echo God’s saving work:
The Visitation becomes, then, a powerful image of what it means to live the hospitality of God—
a God who brings salvation,
a God who invites us into His home,
and at the same time, makes our hearts His dwelling place.<