Georgetown Visitation Monastery

The Visitation

by Olivia Wills Kane ‘85, Ministry Coordinator, Visitation Salesian Network

Mom of Marie Therese ’14, Cecilia ’16, Virginia ’18, Florence ’20

Each year on the Feast of the Visitation, I find myself returning to one small phrase in Luke’s Gospel: Mary “went in haste” to Elizabeth.

For most of my life, I understood that instinctively. I have always moved quickly—a fast walker, eager to get where I am needed. But over the last few years, injuries have slowed me in ways I never expected. There are places I cannot easily go, people I cannot readily reach in person, and ways of helping that are no longer simple. And yet, I have discovered that I can still “go in haste”—with a pen in hand, rather than in footsteps.

In his 1618 sermon for the Feast of the Visitation, St. Francis de Sales reflected: “The Evangelist says that the Virgin proceeded in haste and went up into the hill country of Judea, to show the promptitude with which we should respond to divine inspirations; for when the Holy Spirit touches a heart, He puts to flight all tepidity: He loves diligence and promptitude, and is the enemy of procrastination and delays in the performance of the divine will.”

What our patron lingers on is not Mary’s movement, but its interior source—the way divine prompting does not hesitate, but asks for a ready heart. Before Mary “lifted a finger” to help Elizabeth, she first brought her the presence of Christ simply by arriving. That insight stays with me because I so often think I must arrive with answers, when sometimes the holiest thing is simply to arrive at all. Mary’s first gift was presence.

The Visitation Sisters have long carried forward this ministry of presence—the quiet, faithful work of accompanying another with prayer, humility, and unconditional love. As a member of the Salesian family, I am blessed to have inherited that spirit, carrying others in prayer, memory, and correspondence.

Sometimes, though, I hesitate to reach out. I delay because I fear saying the wrong thing, because grief feels awkward, because encouragement seems too small, or because I assume someone else will know what to say better than I can. I wait to craft the perfect response. Meanwhile, the moment passes.

I have thought about that often while looking through the letters and notes I have saved across a lifetime: notes pinned to the Visitation bulletin board in the 1980s, Junior Retreat letters, sympathy cards when my parents died, my husband’s love letters, and irreverent birthday cards exchanged among old friends. Together, they form a kind of archive of presence: small “visitations” carried heart to heart, pen to paper—little records of how we carried Christ to one another across the years.

Long before the recent epistolary novel The Correspondent reminded readers of the intimacy and power of letters, our Salesian tradition already understood this deeply. Jane and Francis sustained spiritual guidance, holy friendship, and love through correspondence. Their letters were not polished performances, but extensions of care.

Perhaps that is one invitation of this feast: not to wait for grand opportunities to serve, but to respond promptly and lovingly when someone comes to my mind. A handwritten note. A quick text. An email sent before hesitation wins.

I do not need the language of angels. I simply need the willingness to arrive.

We are filled with joy and blessings in our community at Georgetown Visitation. Sr. Emma, now known as Sr. Leonie Francesca, professed her first vows on April 25, 2026, which is the feast of St. Mark. We thank you for all your prayers for her and our community, and we also keep all of you in our prayers.

Believing in the Good

by Kerry Kaminski, Director of Academic Support

Our wonderful school, Visitation, is named for the moment when Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, encounters Mary, her much younger cousin, pregnant with Jesus. The two women were filled with joy at their reunion, delighted to see one another.

At this time, both of these women were being called and challenged in a way that neither expected. The gospel of Luke tells us that Mary put her fears aside to help her cousin Elizabeth with her own miraculous pregnancy. Together, they went forward with joy, hope, and trust.

I have always been an optimistic person, despite my tendency to worry. How can I be both a chronic worrier and a joyful optimist? I landed on this: So much of my faith in God and my outlook on life is because I genuinely believe in the goodness of other people, in their ability to grow when they are loved well and seen for the gift they are.

Joyful optimism asks that we try our best to see another person the way God wants us to, hoping they see us the same way in return. But when things have not gone as I’d hoped, I’ve found comfort in knowing I’ve done my best to know each person. But optimism doesn’t mean blind, unrealistic hope.
Joyful optimism doesn’t mean believing that you will get everything you want. It’s knowing you tried your best to achieve something, and trusting that there is a larger plan when you don’t get what you want.
Joyful optimism isn’t even confidence that you will earn an A on an upcoming test or DBQ, but rather certainty that you will be okay if you don’t.
Joyful optimism sometimes looks like believing in another’s inherent goodness and finding out they aren’t exactly who you hoped them to be, but continuing to believe in people’s inherent goodness, anyway.
Joyful optimism isn’t being certain you will get into your dream college; it’s knowing you will land where you belong.
The opportunity to get to know my students, to try to see each of you the way that God sees you, to joyfully and firmly believe in your potential - and to watch that belief come to fruition on a near daily basis - is as close as I will ever get to being Elizabeth to your Mary, the older of the two women who truly see each other, root for each other, and joyfully encounter each other with faith and hope.

Like all of us, Mary and Elizabeth both had every reason to fear, and yet they remained joyful and hopeful. What a wonderful image to carry in our hearts and our minds throughout our time at Visitation: belief, joy, and certainty amidst doubt, spending our days as we hope to spend our lives: with an eye towards a bigger picture and the faith that our lives will unfold just as they should.

This is an excerpt of a talk that Kerry first gave to students at a Cub-of-the-Month assembly.

Prayer of St. Jane de Chantal

I want nothing but God:
to rest in God completely, being strengthened more and more to serve God
by my total dependence on God’s divine Providence,
always more firmly anchored in the faith of God’s true word
and completely abandoned to God’s mercy and care.
O eternal and fatherly goodness!
My heart opens itself to you.