25TH MARCH 2003
ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD
A BRIEF:
The feast of the Annunciation goes back to the fourth or fifth century. Its central
focus is 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
1:2638 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 ones life for ones friends (John
15:13).
Mary has an important role to play in Gods 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 Gods decrees of creation and redemption are joined in
the decree of Incarnation. As Mary is Gods instrument in the Incarnation, she has a
role to play with Jesus in creation and redemption. It is a God-given role. It is
Gods grace from beginning to end. Mary becomes the eminent figure she is only by
Gods grace. She is the empty space where God could act. Everything she is she owes to
the Trinity.
She is the virgin-mother who fulfills Isaiah 7:14 in a way that Isaiah could not have
imagined. She is united with her son in carrying out the will of God (Psalm 40:89;
Hebrews 10:79; Luke 1:38).
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.
COMMENT:
Sometimes spiritual writers are accused of putting Mary on a pedestal and thereby
discouraging ordinary humans from imitating her. Perhaps such an observation is
misguided. God did put Mary on a pedestal and has put all human beings on a pedestal.
We have scarcely begun to realize the magnificence of divine grace, the wonder of
Gods freely given love. The marvel of Maryeven in the midst of her very ordinary
lifeis Gods shout to us to wake up to the marvelous creatures that we all are by
divine design.
REFLECTION:
Enriched from the first instant of her conception with the splendor of an
entirely unique holiness, the virgin of Nazareth is hailed by the heralding angel, by
divine command, as full of grace (cf. Luke 1:28). To the heavenly messenger she
replies: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word
(Luke 1:38). Thus the daughter of Adam, Mary, consenting to the word of God, became
the Mother of Jesus. Committing herself wholeheartedly and impeded by no sin to Gods
saving will, she devoted herself totally, as a handmaid of the Lord, to the person and
work of her Son, under and with him, serving the mystery of redemption, by the grace
of Almighty God (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 56).
**2617: Mary's prayer is revealed to us at the dawning of the fullness of time.
Before the incarnation of the Son of God, and before the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, her prayer cooperates in a unique way with the Father's plan of loving
kindness: at the Annunciation, for Christ's conception; at Pentecost, for the
formation of the Church, his Body. In the faith of his humble handmaid, the Gift of
God found the acceptance he had awaited from the beginning of time. She whom the
Almighty made full of grace responds by offering her whole being: Behold I am the
handmaid of the Lord; let it be [done] to me according to your word. Fiat: this is
Christian prayer: to be wholly God's, because he is wholly ours.**(CATECHISM OF
CATHOLIC CHURCH)
**O Jesus ! Who for love of me,
Didst bear Thy Cross to Calvary ;
In Thy sweet mercy grant to me
To suffer die with Thee...**
S.THOMAS
NOTTINGHAM
ENGLAND
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