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The Story Of The Annunciation Of The Lord
The Feast of the Annunciation, recognized as a solemnity, is one of the most important in the Church calendar. First, it celebrates the actual Incarnation of Our Savior — the Word made flesh in the womb of His Mother, Mary. Second, it is a principal Marian feast. Three other feasts honoring Our Lord’s Mother are: the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (Jan. 1), the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Aug. 15), and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dec. 8). All three are Holy Days of Obligation.
The feast of the Annunciation was first celebrated around the fifth century. It is the reason why we celebrate Christmas on December 25. Christmas comes exactly nine months after the Archangel Gabriel invited the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God, an event we commemorate on March 25.
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The biblical account of the Annunciation is in the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, which describes the news given to Mary that she was to become the Mother of the Incarnate Word of God, records the “angelic salutation” of Gabriel to Mary, ‘Hail, thou who art highly favored. The Lord is with thee” (this is the origin of the repeated “Hail Mary” prayer of the Rosary); and Mary’s response to God’s will, “Let it be done to me according to thy word.”
Her exultant hymn, the Magnificat, found in Luke 1:46-55, has been part of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours, at Vespers (Evening Prayer), and has been repeated nightly in churches, convents, and monasteries for many centuries.
On this special day, we reflect upon the Incarnation of Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary as the antecedent to the explosion of joy, caroling, gift-giving, eating, drinking, love, and family unity that surrounds the birth of the Savior. With the Incarnation, God has become one of us. From all eternity God had decided that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become human. Now, as Luke 1:26- 38 tells us, the decision is being realized. The God-Man embraces all humanity, indeed all creation, to bring it to God in one great act of love. Because human beings have rejected God, Jesus will accept a life of suffering and an agonizing death: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).
Mary has an important role to play in God’s plan. From all eternity, God destined her to be the Mother of Jesus and closely related to Him in the creation and redemption of the world. We could say that God’s decrees of creation and redemption are joined in the decree of Incarnation. Because Mary is God’s instrument in the Incarnation, she has a role to play with Jesus in creation and redemption. It is a God-given role. It is God’s grace from beginning to end.
Together with Jesus, the privileged and graced Mary is the link between heaven and earth. She is the human being who best, after Jesus, exemplifies the possibilities of human existence. She received into her lowliness the infinite love of God. She shows how an ordinary human being can reflect God in the ordinary circumstances of life. She exemplifies what the Church and every member of the Church is meant to become. She is the ultimate product of the creative and redemptive power of God. She manifests what the Incarnation is meant to accomplish for all of us.
