The Solemnity of the Annunciation, March 25, 2021

Luke 1:26–38

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.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

At the end of the Akathist hymn of the Greeks, we hear, “Gabriel was rapt in amazement as he beheld your virginity and the splendor of your purity, O Mother of God, and he cried out to you: By what name shall I call you? I am bewildered; I am lost! I shall greet you as I was commanded to do: Hail, O Woman full of Grace!”  To glimpse something of the nature of the Conception of our Lord in the womb of the Virgin Mary, we must resort to images such as that of the burning bush in Exodus 3, 2: “And the angel of the Lord appeared to [Moses] in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”  It is a contradiction, a paradox, an impossibility, and yet it is.  

God joined himself to a human nature and so joined himself to us, that we might be joined to him.  For this reason, St. Thomas Aquinas calls the womb of the Virgin Mary the thalamus — the marriage chamber — of God and human nature.  And this is a fallen human nature that receives him as Spouse, reminding us of the commandment of God to marry the harlot: “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.”  This prophetic act was meant to present to the Israelites a living picture of their own relationship with God.  Hosea went and did marry such a wife, and he loved her and they had a son.  But she returned to her harlotry and broke his heart.  We can see here the Son of God marrying our nature in order to draw it away from its inclination to sin, and so to draw us away from it as well. 

The Virgin Mary shows us how to respond to God’s love and his offer of union with our souls.  May we imitate her mind and her life in our obedience and faith.