As a lay associate of some 30 plus years of the religious community I once was a member of, the month of August holds our founding feast day: the feast of the Assumption of Mary. It falls on the 15th of the month, a virtual “bridge” of sorts from the diminishing and shortened days of the summer season, to the ripening and robust season of autumn. This year, the Gospel reading for the 15th of August held for me a new insight into the often heard Visitation of Mary to her elder cousin Elizabeth’s house.

When I was preparing a reflection I was to give on the feast day and was reading that Gospel account, my great-granddaughter was born! The tender image of 2 pregnant women hugging each other in a wordless, at first, embrace found a new home in me. “How does this happen to me, that the mother of my God should come to me?” said Elizabeth upon Mary’s appearing at her door! In the hospital when I first held that new baby girl, I mused “How is it that my grandson has become a daddy himself?”…making me a great-grandmother!!!

At the same time, I was caught up with the idea of Mary deciding to go to Elizabeth in the first place!! Hadn’t she just heard the tumultuous news that she was pregnant at a very young age, and as yet unmarried? Her heart had to have been racing with how to handle this news…how to reveal this state of affairs to her parents……to Joseph!! But I remembered right then and there that that’s exactly when Mary remembered the angel’s greeting, and i did too. “MARY, You are FULL of God’s grace!”

Grace!! Mary Oliver says, “You can have the other words: chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it!”

Grace is undeserved favor/ a free gift…and because we can’t earn it, the only way we can keep it is to give it away!!

Maybe Mary’s heart that day WAS racing with fear and wonder, but being FULL OF GRACE she focused on what else the angel had told her that morning…your elder cousin is also with child! And Mary decides right then and there to go visit!! To go help!! To give her joy away!! And in the time that the 2 women spent with each other ( a few months really) all things worked together for the good…they had time to commisserate and think things over wisely…just the 2 of them…after all, Zachariah was mute…no interference there!! That fullness of grace freely shared may very well have been the fuel that caused Joseph to dream shortly afer…to trust God…to take a chnace on Mary. SEE WHAT GRACE CAN DO!!

Anne Lamott is another one who doesn’t know what grace is…”I do not understand the mystery of grace,” she says…”only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.” When you and I are full of grace, and we are, too, you know…we feel urges…impulses…who needs me? Why did I dream about that someone last night? Why did this person suddenly come into my heart and mind today?

FOLLOW THOSE URGES!!! What if Mary had shoved aside the prompting to go visit Elizabeth, opting to take care of business…it certainly would have been understandable…but think what would have been missed! That day in Elizabeth’s house became a moment that really mattered…so much so that Mary told Luke about all the details urging him not to omit it, because it was really important!!

We too need to follow internal urges to go visit someone we hear or think about, or dream of…those visits could become moments that really matter too…for them and for us!!

If we can’t physically visit… Call…write a snail-mail card or letter…but act on the nudges…GIVE AWAY THE GRACE THAT IS YOURS! It’s the ONLY way to keep the fullness of it that God gives lavishly and freely to all of us!

I wish you an easy transition from summer to fall, and a keener appreciation of the grace that lives within you!

( For more insights, poems, recipes and ways to savor each season as it comes, see my book, “A Seasoned Life.”)