Wednesday in the Third Week of Advent, December 20, 2023

Luke 1, 26-38

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”  But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”

So much richness for us overfills this passage that we will only look at a few of the most important words now.

“Betrothed”.  The Greek and Roman languages had no single word to fully describe the first part of an ancient Jewish marriage and so a verb meaning “to ask in marriage” is used.  This verb is usually translated into English as “betrothed”.  But as we know, the marriage was made in the house of the bride in a very simple, almost informal manner, with the prospective groom asking the bride’s father if he have his daughter’s hand in marriage, and then the father asking the bride if she would accept the groom, the bride’s consent, and the father’s consent.  The marriage might then be recorded in written form.  The groom returned alone to his house and began preparations to bring the bride there.  A period of time ranging from weeks to a year could elapse before the bride and groom began to live together after the marriage was made.  This differed markedly from the Greek and Roman practices.  But there is no question as to the Virgin Mary being married to Joseph at the time of the Annunciation.  

“Virgin”.  St. Luke specifically tells us that Mary was “a virgin betrothed” to Joseph, or, as respecting the reality of the situation, “to a virgin married” to Joseph “but before they lived together” (Matthew 1, 18).  We might wonder at the need for Mary to be a virgin.  Her virginity throughout her life is her gift of herself to God without reservation.  She belonged to God in a way no married person could be.  Her virginity at the time of her conception of God’s Son and after his Birth is a sign from God that he accepted her gift of herself to him.  It is also a sign for us of the divine origin of her Son.

“Hail, full of grace!”  The Angel Gabriel puts this phrase in the standard greeting in place of Mary’s given name.  That is, instead of, Hail Mary, the Angel says to her, “Hail, Full of Grace!”  This is the name which God gives her.  In fact, the Greek shows this to be a pale translation of what the Angel said.  The Greek word is a perfect passive participle in which an action has been completed in the past with its effects continuing into the present.  The Angel reveals that this Virgin has been fully transformed by grace.  Because she, who had ever only considered herself “the handmaid of the Lord”, was “greatly troubled” by the greeting, the Angel next spoke to her using her given name.

“You have found favor with God”.  For St. Luke and St. Paul, whom Luke accompanied on missionary journeys, the word here translated as “favor” meant only divine grace: You have found divine grace with God.  That is to say, God has bestowed divine grace upon you for your devotion to him.

“Since I have no relations with a man.”  The Greek verb here is in the continual present: I am having no relations with a man.  The implication is that she will not be having relations at any future time, otherwise Mary would just assume that the Child would be born in the normal course of her life with her husband.  Mary is saying to the Angel that she has given herself entirely to God and this includes her virginity.  Although a young Jewish woman, she has felt very intensely the call to make this offering and she has responded.  How then, could this Child be conceived in her?  Mary in no one objects to the Angel’s words but simply does not see how to reconcile her call to perpetual virginity with this new call to motherhood.  The Angel removes her concern by asserting that the Child would not be conceived by a man but by the Holy Spirit.

“For nothing will be impossible for God.”  The mystery of the conception of Jesus in the virginal womb of Mary shows how nothing will be impossible for God and points to how God will redeem us through the mystery of the Death of his Son when there seemed to the human race that no redemption was possible.  These words also give us hope, for though we cannot save ourselves, he can, if we let him.