 |
| Witch Hazel in Snow |
THE WORD VISIT COMES FROM THE LATIN visitare: to go to see. And visere: to behold. And yet again videre: to see, to notice, to observe.
I like to behold the best. When I was a new priest on Long Island in the winter of 1980, I received a flyer from The Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay - a kind of heads up not to miss the outdoor winter events that might be overlooked in the cold time. "Come and see the Witch Hazel tree that's due to bloom in January."
As a young boy, planting a purple Columbine with my mother in the sandy Long Island soil delighted me. And I remember the happy discovery of a Jack in the Pulpit blooming in the wooded area behind our house. The idea of a tree blooming in January intrigued me, and so I set out.
It was a typical Long Island winter day: low sky, damp and gray with some snow cover. Following the little map offered at the gatehouse, I made my way around the trails until I found it. The tree was young, not yet six foot tall, but fully branched and indeed, (I could see even from a distance) it was covered with yellow flowers. Stepping closer, the air was filled with its perfume. Garden books and catalogs describe the scent as heady and intoxicating. I might as well have been standing with Moses before the Burning Bush. Thirty-four years later the memory of this visitation comes to me every January.
It was a typical Long Island winter day: low sky, damp and gray with some snow cover. Following the little map offered at the gatehouse, I made my way around the trails until I found it. The tree was young, not yet six foot tall, but fully branched and indeed, (I could see even from a distance) it was covered with yellow flowers. Stepping closer, the air was filled with its perfume. Garden books and catalogs describe the scent as heady and intoxicating. I might as well have been standing with Moses before the Burning Bush. Thirty-four years later the memory of this visitation comes to me every January.
Perhaps we are losing our sense of visit or visitation because of the quick and often surfacey communicating that occurs via technology now. But not too long ago our lives were filled with the pleasures or requirements of visiting:
- We might visit someone in a nursing home. Older folks lament not being visited. People are too busy.
- Catholics over 50 will remember phrases like let's visit the church or visit the Blessed Sacrament.
- The Sunday visiting of relatives was once an important aspect of American culture.
- A nun would receive people in a visitor's parlor.
- Years ago we might pay a visit to a neighbor or
- Visit a funeral home - paying our respects.
- Do we use the phrase visiting a website?
But now stepping into Ordinary Time (what used to be called the Sundays after Epiphany) we've completed the time of celebrating God's Visitation in Jesus of Bethlehem. There are two lovely verses found in St. Luke's Gospel that call this to mind:
At the circumcision of his son, John (the Baptist), Zechariah spoke this prophecy: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited his people and set them free and he has established for us a saving power..." (Luke 1:68)
And after the raising of the widow's son at Nain, "Everyone was filled with awe and glorified God saying, 'A great prophet has risen up among us; God has visited his people,'" (Luke 7:16)
But God visits still and not just in church. We might be on the look out! Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
But God visits still and not just in church. We might be on the look out! Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
