The two women were having a conversation unique in human history. They were talking about experiences with the Archangel Gabriel and about what had happened to them—and what was to happen to the history of humankind.

The Lady Mary had walked from Nazareth south into the hills of Judea, carrying in her womb the man through whom Almighty God meant to redeem humankind. Before His birth, sin; after it, grace. And she found Elizabeth closer to delivering the prophet who would go before Him.

This breaking in on human evolution was of unique significance to life on earth. So God had sent His angel Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God and who very rarely left it, as far as we know.  This time was unique because he came to the Lady Mary to speak to you and tell you this great news.

As they talked, the Lady Mary had to explain to her cousin what was different for her and Joseph. Their fathers had made a formal agreement, the engagement, that their offspring should marry. Then Joseph and Mary had taken the next step and Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, who made the same pledge,  and they were betrothed. If things would go as they were meant to, Joseph would come and take Mary to his home in about a year.

For some months in that year, things did not go as they’d planned. So Gabriel had to explain to Joseph in a dream.  Gabriel had already told the Lady Mary what God had asked of her.  And the Lady Mary asked how she was to get pregnant since I do not know man. Gabriel had explained about the Holy Spirit and she was explaining to Elizabeth that she had accepted. Then, after the usual time, her whole body confirmed what was happening and her spirit rejoiced in God my savior.

And the angel had already come to Zachary to predict what was to happen to him through his elderly spouse, Elizabeth. Zachary had been spreading incense on the fire in the inner sanctum and the elderly man had struggled to appreciate what this all meant. There were some twenty thousand priests besides Zachary, most of whom would never get into the inner sanctum to put the incense on the fire. Zachary was already an old man when he finally got chosen by lot to do it.  And as the fragrant smoke was filling the room in front of the Holy of Holies, the great Archangel Gabriel emerged out of the cloud on his right hand.

When the Lady Mary and Elizabeth were talking, Zachary still could not articulate what he knew and felt about this confusion. It would be some months before his tongue was loosened and he could insist that the boy be named John.  What Elizabeth could tell the Lady Mary as they talked, though, was this:  Her spouse had indicated that she was carrying the prophet who was to be named Jesus as the end of the Old Testament and the launch of the New.

All of this was what the Lady Mary and the holy Elizabeth were talking about during what we casually call the Visitation—changes that had never happened before and could never happen again. No pregnancies in history gave birth to more universally consequential human lives. And no one could ever again talk as the Lady Mary and Elizabeth talked during that unique visitation.