The Second Joyful Mystery // The Visitation
Fruit of the Mystery // Love of Neighbor
Reflect
Not five minutes after I hit “publish” on my pregnancy announcement Instagram post, two of my dearest college friends texted me almost identical messages.
“Congratulations!!! I’m pregnant too!”
So began a group text thread between the three of us former roommates, spread out across the country and all due with our first babies within a few weeks of one another. Over the coming months, we checked in on each other often—trading symptoms, sharing updates, asking for prayers, and counting down to our due dates.
Friendship between women is a beautiful, nourishing, complex thing. From dance company to a sorority to women’s study groups, I have always been the type to gravitate toward female friendships. Sure, I have weathered the drama, gossip, and cliques that often come along with groups of women. But the authenticity and compassion and understanding that comes seeking the Lord alongside sisters in Christ? I have found it well worth enduring the way our sinfulness manifests through our feminine natures to get to that.
In my thirty years of life, nothing has bonded me so profoundly to my friends as much as walking through motherhood together has. My first hint at how very sweet and meaningful this experience would be came from that text chain. Over the past four years, we have been able to support and love one another through nine children between the three of us—six on earth and three in Heaven.
Imagine those months that Our Lady spent with her cherished cousin—the one she “traveled to the hill country in haste” to see (Luke 1:39). I picture Elizabeth sharing her tips and tricks for staying comfortable or sleeping well with a growing baby bump. I picture Mary placing a hand over Elizabeth’s belly to feel a baby kick and excitedly sharing the news of the first movement she felt weeks later. These women—a Saint and the Queen of All Saints—were women and mothers and cousins. They shared their lives in beautiful communion, the perfect model of female friendship and a joyful example of loving one’s neighbor.
Let Us Pray
“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” // Luke 1:42-45
For Discussion
Share an experience when you felt closest to a friend. How was God part of that?
What is one takeaway from your reflection on Mary and Elizabeth spending those three months together?
Praying the Rosary
Throughout the Prayer Pledge and beyond, we really encourage you to pray the Rosary! Since we will be looking at the fruits of the Mysteries of the Rosary, it only makes sense to actually pray it!
Here is a guide on how to pray the Rosary.
I like this podcast and this podcast for praying the Rosary.
Hallow also has a marvelous Rosary meditation.
And if you want to go even deeper in to the Rosary, check out Mystery!
By Their Fruits: The 2021 Prayer Pledge // Day 5 #BISblog #prayerpledge //Click to tweet
Lisa Kirk is a regular contributor to the BIS blog. New York City-born and internationally raised, she now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her study-abroad-crush-turned-husband and their two children. A former wedding magazine editor and fashion copywriter, she now writes primarily for Something Pretty, the Catholic living and classic style blog she began in 2010. She loves learning about the Saints, wandering the city with coffee in hand, and making new friends on Instagram. Read all of Lisa's posts here.
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