The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Saturday, March 25, 2023

Hebrews 10, 4-10

Brothers and sisters: It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats takes away sins. For this reason, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.  Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.’ ”  First Christ says, “Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.” These are offered according to the law. Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.” He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will”, we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.

This feast could also be called that of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, for he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary very soon after the angel of the Lord departed from her after completing his mission.  The Annunciation has been celebrated as far back as our liturgical books go, to the  third or fourth centuries and has always and only been celebrated on March 25.  The tradition prevailed from the earliest days of the Church, that the Lord Jesus was born and died on the same date, March 25, and that the world was likewise created on that day.  It is on account of the Annunciation being fixed on this date that we celebrate the Lord’s Birth on December 25, nine months afterwards.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is the familiar text from St. Luke’s Gospel 1, 26-28.  The second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, reminds us of the purpose God had in mind for the Incarnation of his Son of a human mother.  From time immemorial bulls and goats and other animals were sacrificed to obtain forgiveness from God, but the blood of these creatures could only be a sign, a preparation, for the one Sacrifice that would take away the guilt of sin: that of God’s Son.  And it was the will of God’s Son to make this offering of himself: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.  Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.”  The author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 40, 6-8, no doubt one of the Old Testament texts the Lord explained to his Apostles after the Resurrection.  These words are said to be in Christ’s in the sense that they tell us what he desired to do for us.  In them, he says to his Father that because the sacrifice of bulls and goats did not satisfy for sin and because he willed the redemption of the human race, a fitting Victim must be found.  That Victim could only be divine, and would have to be joined to a human nature: the divinity meant a Sacrifice of infinite worth to atone for the sin against infinite majesty, and the human nature meant that there could be the death that was necessary for a true sacrifice.  “A body your prepared for me”, that is, the Body and human nature of this Redeemer would be taken from his Mother.  His human soul would be created ex nihilo by God.  “I come to do your will, O God.”  For the Son, whether in heaven or on earth, life meant doing the will of his Father.  John 6, 38: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”  He does the Father’s will not out of fear or as an unwilling slave, but out of his unutterable love for him.  “He takes away the first to establish the second.”  That is, the Lord Jesus abolished the offerings of animals in order to establish for all time his Sacrifice as that which alone atones for sin.

“By this ‘will’, we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  Baptized in the Lord’s Death, we are consecrated — made sacred.  This is so because of the Lord’s will to offer himself for us and by his doing so.  This reminds us that the Son of God was sent by the Father into the world.  He was sent for one purpose: to suffer and die for us, at one and the same time atoning for our sins and revealing the depths of God’s love for us.

Let us ponder this love for us as we gaze at the smallness he entered into in the Holy Eucharist, and at the crucifix, where we recall all that he has done for us.  By knowing his love for us, we will better know him and love him.