Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah

Who they were

Luke opens his Gospel in their house. Zechariah was a priest of the Temple course of Abijah, Elizabeth was of Aaron's line, both were called righteous before God, and both were old and childless in a world that read that as a verdict.

The angel's promise met two responses worth holding side by side. Zechariah's arithmetic, how shall I know this, cost him his voice for nine months. Elizabeth's faith flowered into the Visitation, the second Joyful Mystery, where the aged mother, filled with the Holy Spirit, greeted her young cousin: blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Half of the opening of the Hail Mary is Elizabeth's own sentence, prayed ten thousand times by people who never learned whose words they were. Zechariah's release came at the naming, his name is John, and his first words in nine months were the Benedictus, which the Church has prayed every morning since.

Why people turn to Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah

Couples in the long wait for a child, with St. Joachim and Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin; theirs is the answered late corner of that shelf, and St. Gerard Majella belongs beside them. Clergy and their families. And everyone gone silent, from doubt or grief or being silenced, asking for the Benedictus grace: the voice returns, and returns praising.

How to ask their intercession

Pray the Visitation knowing whose words you are borrowing. For the waiting couples, one prayer said in two places at once, which is what their household did for nine months.