Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: RB 7:31-33Mass: Zp 3:14-18a or Rm 12:9-16; Resp Ps (Is 12); Lk 1:39-53 Visitation Church, Ein Kerim, JerusalemMary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town in Judah,where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
What follows is an excerpt from this morning’s reading at Vigils. From an unpublished text by Christian de Chergé, OCSO (1927-1996), one of the seven Trappist monks killed in Algeria in 1996: 
I imagine well that we are in the same situation as Mary who is going and visiting her cousin Elizabeth; she bears in her a living secret which is the one we can carry ourselves: a living good news. She received it from an angel. It is her secret and it is the secret of God, too. And she does not know really how to reveal this secret. Is she going to say something to Elizabeth? Can she say it? How to say it How to do it? Does she have to keep it hidden?It is the same for our Church who bears in her a good news. And our Church, it is each of us, and we come a little like Mary, at first to help—it was her first ambition…but also bearing this good news. How will we tell this good news?
COME AND HEAR, ALL WHO FEAR GOD;I WILL TELL WHAT THE LORD DID FOR MY SOUL.(Entrance Antiphon, Mass)
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
MARY REMAINED WITH HER ABOUT THREE MONTHS ANDTHEN RETURNED TO HER HOME.