25 March 2020
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Later, on the occasion of John the Baptist’s birth, his father, Zechariah will sing, “…the tender mercy of our God, by which the daybreak from on high will visit us [will] shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow…” (Luke 1:78-79). In our Gospel today that light has come: the invisible God will soon be made visible, for the Word has become flesh, and made His dwelling among us (John 1:14) not in a Temple of stone, but the sinless Ark of the Virgin’s womb (Revelation 11:19, 12:1).
An angel appears, and notice Mary was not troubled by what she saw, but rather by what was said! She who is without sin is without fear of angels, whereas in days of old it was often that when an angel appeared to anyone its first words were “Do not be afraid!” in reference to itself! Yet she is unafraid, because sin has not darkened her heart; to a sinner, the sight of an angel is as though a light had suddenly been turned on in a dark room. It is startling and painful. Yet for one accustomed to the light, another light is hardly anything; so it is with Mary and the angel. So it is the angel’s greeting that startles her, as she has never been greeted in such a way—certainly not by a herald of Heaven!—and the greeting itself is strange. “Full of grace?” “The Lord is with you?”
She cannot “see” how such things are possible, not because of any blindness caused by sin, but more because the eyes of the human mind have no the capacity to see such light! How has any human soul been “full of grace” since the Fall of Man? “The Lord is with me?” she might have thought, “How so? Where is He; I see only His angel.” But no explanation of either will lead to the Virgin saying, “Ah, I see.” Rather, only with the eyes of tremendous faith will she come to understand, for “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1). And so the angel tells her of the things that will one day be revealed through this promised Son, yet neither can she see this possibility, for she has “…no relations with a man.” For “by faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God…” (Hebrews 11:2) and God so ordered the begetting of children by means of man and wife becoming “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). She could not as yet see that it would not be her becoming one flesh with a man, but that God and Man, the Invisible and the Visible, would become one flesh within her!
What was it that helped the Virgin see that “nothing will be impossible with God?” What illuminated her faith such that the eyes of her heart could adjust not from accustomed darkness to light, but from one light, to One even brighter? “…behold,” the angel says, “Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren…” By sixth months it would be absolutely clear to the eyes that a woman was with child, and so we know that Mary goes with haste to visit her relative, eyes wide to the greatness of God. She does not go needing doubt confirmed; there is no doubt, but rather a thirst for understanding, for an interior vision of something so bright as to be unseeable. Mary is, in a sense, blinded not by the darkness of sin as we, but momentarily blinded by a light brighter than human finitude has ever beheld. Twice the angel sought to aid her in seeing, but in a merciful act instead gives Mary something to behold that will be equally effective: a sign of something impossible that God has done.
Mary believes the angel, delivering the Fiat that filled her with the Light of Heaven, that it might dawn in this dark world. She sees that all these things are true and shall come to pass, that “the Mighty One has done great things for” her: she has become the crystal-clear lantern, the brilliant lamp, bearing the Light of God!