The feast day of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on 31st May.  After the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that she was to become the mother of Our Lord, Mary went from Galillee to Judea to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, soon to be the mother of John the Baptist.  Elizabeth greeted Mary with the words “Blessad are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb”.  Mary burst forth with the song of praise, which we call the Magnificat, beginning “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”  We are told that even John the Baptist, still unborn, leaped for joy in his mother’s womb.  We are shown, side by side, the two women, one semingly too old to have a child, but destined to bear the last prophet of the Old Covenant, of the age that was passing away;  and the other woman, seemingly not ready to have a child, but destined to bear the one who was himself the beginning of the New Covenant, the age that would not pass away.