Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The Psalm
40:5-11
or
Canticle 15 (The Song of Mary)
The Readings
Isaiah 7:10-14 + Hebrews 10:4-10 + Luke 1:26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."
~Luke 1:26-28
In our current context, most of us find ourselves suddenly spending much more time at home. And so one of the things that both impresses and encourages me on this Annunciation is that it is a homely scene. This divine-human encounter par excellence takes place, in all likelihood, in a humble house. Perhaps, as depicted so often in art, in a kitchen, or a bedroom, or on a back porch. Whatever the precise setting, we are told that the angel is sent to Mary's hometown, to her own unassuming context. The angelic annunciation comes, no doubt, as she is about her daily tasks in a world of comparative simplicity--a world that consisted, for most people most of the time, of work in and about the home or its immediate environs. That is where the messenger is sent--God comes to make a home among us by first making a home in the womb of a young woman at home.
And in this time when I am also missing the celebration of the eucharist, and saddened at the prospect of the necessity of being unable to celebrate the holy mysteries of the altar for some time, I am also encouraged by noting that this encounter between Mary and the angel is unexpected, unprecedented, and perplexing. Yet she chooses to trust God. And even amid the griefs, challenges, and uncertainties we face, I know our Lord's promise: 'Lo, I am with you always.' I know that I have tasted the goodness of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament before, and I will again. And I know that now, even while dispersed and in longing, we are the Body of Christ by the power of the Spirit--'for nothing will be impossible with God.'
Here is a poem for this day, by the composer and liturgist, Bob Hurd. I love especially the middle stanza, in which he draws out the insight that the Body and Blood we take and receive in the eucharist first took a body and received the blood of life from Mary, his mother.
Be it done unto me.
Be it done unto me. How can you who encompass all things
be encompassed by me?
In whose image I am wondrously made, be made, then, of me.
This my body and this my blood: Take and receive.
They are you now, O child of my womb.
O fruit of my tree.
I will love you with an unfailing love,
so wide and so deep,
that the arrow that pierces your side, will surely pierce me.
Be it done unto me.
Be it done unto me.
 |
| The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1898 |
Closing Prayer
Almighty and Everlasting God, who has stooped to raise fallen humanity through the child-bearing of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Grant that we, who have seen your glory revealed in our human nature and your love made perfect in our weakness, may daily be renewed in your image and conformed to the pattern of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
~from Saint Augustine's Prayer Book
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