Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Health Vailankanni

"Most blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" The words, "How does this happen to me" are not a sign of ignorance, as though Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, did not know that the Lord's Mother had come to her according to the will of God. But the meaning of her words is this: "What good have I ever done? In what way are my works so important that the Mother of my Lord should come to see me? Am I a saint? What kind of perfection or interior fidelity have merited me the favor of a visit from the Mother of the Lord? "For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy." He had been aware that the Lord had come to sanctify his servant even before he was born. May it fall to my lot to be treated as mad by those without faith for having believed such mysteries!… Because what is held as madness by those people is cause of sanity for me. Indeed, if the birth of the Savior had not been heavenly and blessed, if it had not possessed anything of the divine or superior to human nature, its teaching would never have won the whole earth. If there had only been a male child and not the Son of God in Mary's womb, how could it have come about that, at that time and today, too, all kinds of sicknesses, not only of body but also of soul, could have been healed?… If we collect everything related about Jesus, we can affirm that everything written about him was held to be divine and worthy of admiration. For his birth, education, power, his Passion and resurrection were not simply events that took place at that time: they are still at work among us today.

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"How does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

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