The Time of My Visitation

Today the Church celebrates its birthday in the Feast of Pentecost. If this were not a Sunday, let alone Pentecost Sunday, we would be celebrating another beautiful feast day ~ that of the Visitation. Shortly after learning of her own pregnancy, Our Lady rushed to her cousin Elizabeth who in her somewhat advanced years also found herself pregnant.
The reason I am writing about this particular feast is because it was this day seven years ago that I made the decision to come back to the Church. Now my actually being able to walk back into a church and receive Holy Communion worthily would be about six months down the road, but on this particular day I could no longer resist Christ's invitation to return to Him. What I have come to believe over these last 7 years is that our Blessed Mother was behind it all. She was doing at that moment what she always does; she was leading me back to her Son. Although in my case at this point in time I think there was some dragging by my hair involved ~ at least at the beginning. The date of my reversion is no mere coincidence. Just as Elizabeth was visited by Mary and Jesus, I too had my own moment of visitation.
One thing I began to do almost immediately after this day was I began to pray the Rosary again. The Visitation would now play another key role in my coming back fully into the Church. When I had signed up to make the Rachel's Vineyard retreat for post-abortion healing, I was told that I would need to name my aborted child. Well, all I could think was how am I supposed to name someone I never laid eyes on before? Our Lady took care of this as well. One day as I was praying the Joyful mysteries of the Rosary, just as I began the second mystery of the Visitation, the name Elizabeth~Anne seemed to just find its way into my mind. I knew almost in an instant that I had a daughter and I now also knew her name. Now to some who may read this, it may sound a bit far-fetched or just the wishful thinking of a grieving mother; I assure you this had very little to do with me. I truly felt as though that name had been given to me.
So today as the Church celebrates its birthday, in some ways I also celebrate my own. Yes, there are still some growing pains along the way, but I am so very grateful that I am able to feel them again. And like most school children, I continue to learn something new each day. This has been and continues to be the time of my Visitation.