In the Church of the Visitation, behind the altar, there is a painting that depicts the scene of the Visitation. It’s a picture of two peasant women, both pregnant, greeting each other. Everything about it suggests smallness, littleness, obscurity, dust, small-town, insignificance. Fr. Ron Rolheiser writes that what you see is two rather plain-looking women standing in the dust of an unknown village. Nothing suggests that either of them or anything they are doing or carrying, is out of the ordinary or of much significance. Yet, and this is the genius of the painting, all that littleness, obscurity, seeming barrenness, and small-town insignificance makes you automatically ask the question: “Who would have thought it? Who could ever have imagined that these two women, in this obscure town, in this obscure place, in this obscure time, were carrying inside of themselves something that would radically and forever change the world? What these obscure peasant women were gestating and carrying inside of themselves would one day change history more than any army, philosopher, artist, King or Queen, or entertainment star ever would. Inside of themselves, they were gestating the Christ and the Prophet. These births changed the world radically. There is a lesson in that: Never underrate, in terms of world importance, someone living in obscurity who is pregnant with promise. Never underestimate the impact in history of silent, hidden gestation. We might well meditate on this image: Insofar as we have real significance, we all live in obscurity, pregnant with promise, silently, in a way hidden from the world, gestating that which will change time and history. If we understood this, there would be more peace in our lives and one of the raging fires inside of us would torment us much less. Invariably, we sit inside our own lives, and we feel unknown, small-time, undistinguished, and frustrated because almost all of our riches are still unknown to others. We have so much to give to the world, but the world doesn’t know about us.