This had been a lonely year, though. She could keep herself busy for a while with friends and she could distract herself for a few weekends by leaving town, but something was definitely missing.
The mother of this prophet is visited by the Mother of God. In the coming together of these two pregnant women, we see the coming together of the old and the new.
As C. S. Lewis, in "The Magician’s Nephew", has Aslan sing the world and all its beautiful intricacies into existence, so the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Lord Jesus, hymns the heavens and earth into being.
And there was heard, all round the world, the boom of a pounding hammer. And there resounded, all around the world, the cry of a righteous man who prayed for an unrighteous world.