The Annunciation
Verses 30-33 30The
angel said, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for
you have found favour with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your
womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be
great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the
house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
The Annunciation of the Lord celebrates the angel Gabriel's
appearance to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:26-38),
his announcement that the Blessed Virgin had been chosen to be the Mother of
Our Lord, and Mary's fiat—her willing acceptance of God's holy plan.
The Archangel Gabriel, God's Messenger is sent
to a young virgin who is betrothed. He greets her saying, "Rejoice,
full of grace, the Lord is with you." FULL OF GRACE and THE LORD IS
WITH YOU. Mary trembles at the
extravagance of this greeting and is troubled. The angel himself is awed
because He is aware of what God is asking of her. He knows that God the
Father waits in humility for His daughter Mary, whom He has fashioned free from
original sin, this masterpiece of His creation, to willingly and freely give
her consent to His Divine Plan.
REFLECTION
When we reflect on the Annunciation to Mary,
and her acceptance of the angel’s message, we also reflect on our own vocation
— our own calling from God. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” — an echo of Mary’s “Be it done
unto me according to your word.” Each time we commit ourselves to embracing
God’s call and accepting His will, we mark a new point on the path of our
relationship with Him. For the rest of her life, Mary pondered her
extraordinary encounter with God, turning the weight of the angel’s message
over and over again in her heart. From the manger to the cross, Mary’s life was
radically changed — her relationship with God profoundly deepened — the moment
she said “Yes.”
Mary received and welcomed God’s Word in the
fullest sense — becoming impregnated with it, and bearing it to the world.
Angels might not appear in our doorsteps, but we do encounter God in each of
our daily prayers, and he whispers to us a similar invitation: Will we accept
His love and bring it joyously to those around us? Will we trust in His providence,
even when we can’t see the path ahead? Amid the noise of everyday life, will we
listen for and embrace his call?
Mary,
Mother of the “Yes,” you listened to Jesus, and know the tone of his voice and
the beating of his heart. Morning Star, speak to us of him, and tell us about
your journey of following him on the path of faith.
The Visitation
Luke
1:39-41
39 In
those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill
country, 40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted
Elizabeth. 41When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt
in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
The
Holy Spirit inspired Mary and the meeting between the two expectant mothers,
especially the two children they bore, was a providential plan. Mary made
haste, she exposed herself to the fatigue of a long journey, she climbed
mountains, and soon she reached the end of her journey. How wonderful! Mary and
Elizabeth have hardly been together long before Elizabeth’s infant leaps in her
womb, and she herself, filled with the Holy Spirit, embraced Mary and
exclaimed: "You are blessed among all women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb!"
The
Church borrowed these words for the Hail Mary, which has become one of the most
beautiful Christian prayers. These words have resounded everywhere and over the
centuries! Thus, Jesus’ mission began before His birth; He sanctified John the
Baptist in his mother’s womb, because by leaping with joy John announced the
Prophet who foretells of his God, and the Precursor which recognizes the
Savior.
Filled
with the Holy Spirit, Mary sang the beautiful song of thanksgiving, the
Magnificat, celebrating in heavenly language the wonders God has done for her.
All the echoes of time and eternity will repeat this song forever.
REFLECTION
There
are two aspects of today’s Visitation scene to consider. The first is that any
element of personal agenda of Mary and Elizabeth is put aside. Both had good
reason to be very preoccupied with their pregnancies and all that new life
brings. Both women had a right to focus on themselves for a while as they made
new and radical adjustments to their daily lives.
Mary reaches out to her kinswoman to help her
and also to be helped by her. These two great biblical women consoled each
another, shared their stories, and gave each other the gift of themselves in
the midst of the new life that they must have experienced: Elizabeth after her
long years of barrenness and now sudden pregnancy, and Mary, after her meeting
with the heavenly messenger, and her “irregular” marriage situation and
pregnancy.
The second point to consider is Mary’s quick
response and movement. Luke tells us that she undertook “in haste” the long and
perilous trek from Nazareth to a village in the hill country of Judea. She knew
clearly what she wanted and did not allow anyone or anything to stop her.
The story of the Visitation teaches us an
important lesson: When Christ is growing inside of us, we will be led to
people, places and situations that we never dreamed of. We will bear words of
consolation and hope that are not our own. In the very act of consoling others,
we will be consoled. We will be at peace, recollected, because we know that
however insignificant our life and issues seem to be, from them Christ is
forming himself.
The women of today’s Gospel show us that it is
possible to move beyond our own little, personal agendas and engage in
authentic ministry and service in the Church. Ministry and service are not
simply doing things for others. Authentic Christian ministers and servants
allow themselves to serve and be served, taught, cared for, consoled and loved.
Such moments liberate us and enable us to sing Magnificat along the journey,
and celebrate the great things that God does for us and His people.
Consider
these words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997): “In the mystery
of the Annunciation and the Visitation, Mary is the very model of the life we
should lead. First of all, she welcomed Jesus in her existence; then, she
shared what she had received. Every time we receive Holy Communion, Jesus the
Word becomes flesh in our life — gift of God who is at one and the same time
beautiful, kind, unique.
The
Nativity
6While
they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And
she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid
him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. - Luke 2:6-7
Mary
shares in her Son's redeeming mission. She experiences childbirth in a
condition of extreme poverty: she cannot give the Son of God even what mothers
usually offer a newborn baby; instead, she has to lay him "in a
manger", an improvised cradle which contrasts with the dignity of the
"Son of the Most High".
The Gospel notes that "there was no
place for them in the inn" (Lk 2:7). This statement, recalling the text in
John's Prologue: "His own people received him not" (Jn 1:11),
foretells as it were the many refusals Jesus will meet with during his earthly
life. The phrase "for them" joins the Son and the Mother in this
rejection, and shows how Mary is already associated with her Son's destiny of
suffering and shares in his redeeming mission.
The shepherds’ spontaneous desire to make known
what "had been told them concerning this child" (Lk 2:17), after the
wondrous experience of meeting the Mother and her Son, suggests to evangelizers
in every age the importance and, even more, the necessity of a deep spiritual
relationship with Mary, in order to know Jesus better and to become the joyful
proclaimers of his Gospel of salvation.
In the Advent Liturgy we read the prophecies
concerning Jesus’ arrival. He is the hope of all people through the ages
and we are filled with longing as we wait in anticipation for Christmas and we
are filled with joy for God has visited His people.
Although we are unworthy Jesus comes into our
soul faithfully in every Eucharist and we each experience a little Christmas
and God becomes incarnate in our heart.
REFLECTION
The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord is an opportunity for each of us to evaluate how well we are incarnating God’s love. If we find that we are not the perfect image of God (that would be all of us!), then we must ask ourselves, “In what ways do I need to allow God to transform me into His image?” The answer usually falls into one of these three categories: fasting (making room for God), prayer (inviting Him in) and almsgiving (offering the blessings I receive—and myself—in love). This is why the Church wisely appoints this time of Advent in the liturgical year as a penitential period. In whatever way we observe this liturgical season, the important thing is to ensure that it is a time of preparation. We need to make room for God in order for Him to abide in us and transform us into Himself. In this way, we can each incarnate God’s love for all those we encounter.
If faith consists, in part, of a real encounter with God, then by making Him known through our own beings, we are bringing into the world the opportunity for faith. Jesus was born into the world in a stable—the most common and ordinary of places. We can bring Him into the world in the most ordinary of places too, such as a grocery store.
As we contemplate the face of Christ, it is
also essential and indispensable to affirm that the Word truly “became flesh”
and took on every aspect of humanity except sin. Yet from another perspective
the Incarnation of Christ is truly a kenosis – a “self-emptying” of the
glory and divinity he possessed as the Son of God from all eternity. As John
Paul II states, this truth may be more problematic for our own modern culture
of rationalism as it has the tendency to deny the faith in the divinity of
Christ.
The Incarnation of Christ, his becoming human,
lays the foundation in our society for a vision of the human person which moves
beyond the limitations and contradictions of this world and places us in
relationship with God. This is another gift of the Incarnation. The gift of the
human person created in the image of God and redeemed through Christ is the eternal
message and gift of Christmas.
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