This zeal showed itself at once. No sooner had He become incarnate than
He inspired His Mother to take a difficult journey into the "hill
country" to visit her cousin Elizabeth. The zeal of JESUS showed itself
first of all, as it naturally would, on His Mother and filled her spirit
with the humility and charity and forgetfulness of self which were
needed for the journey. It then effected Elizabeth and filled her with
the Holy Ghost, but these were only the overflowings of His zeal on His
way to make what Father Faber calls His "first convert." The soul of
John the Baptist, His chosen Precursor, was very precious to Him and as
yet it lay unconscious at a distance from God in darkness and the shadow
of death. One of the first acts of God Incarnate was to deliver that
soul from prison and let it see what great things He had in store for
it. At the sound of the voice of the Mother with her Child, a change was
wrought in that dark soul; it was set free from the curse of original
sin, it was flooded with grace, it was brought nigh to God, the Holy
Ghost with all His gifts took possession of it and as a consequence, it
leapt in the womb in joy and gratitude and adoration.
The voice of Mary directed by her Child had simultaneously worked two
miracles of grace. Elizabeth heard the salutation first, but it was the
leaping of the Babe in her womb which made her understand that the
Incarnation had taken place, and cry with a loud voice: "Blessed art
thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb."
If the zeal of JESUS was so powerful during the first hours of His life,
what must it not have effected during the nine months! How many souls
without knowing (as St. John the Baptist did) the cause, were brought
nearer to Heaven by the presence of the Incarnate God in the world!