Mary Accepts the Role of Mother of the Messiah

Homily for the Solemnity of the Annunciation

It is a quirk of the liturgical calendar that the Solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord so often falls just before Holy Week. The celebration of Mary’s “yes” and the first moments of Jesus’ presence in the world as a member of the human family fold into the highest holy days celebrating the purpose for which Jesus came: his ultimate act of sacrificial love and triumph over death, all to bring the human family into abundant life with him. Exactly nine months before Christmas, our contemplation of the beginning of Jesus’ life overlaps with our contemplation of his death. It’s as if we behold the entire Paschal Mystery in a small prism or seed today: “heaven and earth in little space,” as the anonymous medieval poet wrote in “Rosa Mystica.”

This moment in the life of the maid of Nazareth is one of the most frequent subjects of artists. One of the most celebrated images was painted by the American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner. It is an unconventional image of the moment when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the Son of God. Mary is shown as an adolescent dressed in rumpled Middle Eastern peasant clothing, without a halo or other holy attributes, surrounded by disheveled blankets and rugs. Gabriel appears only as a shaft of light. Mary’s face reveals both an element of fear and questioning which are both parts of the gospel narrative. Tanner entered this painting in the 1898 Paris Salon exhibition, after which it was bought for the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1899, making it his first work to enter an American museum.

Despite her fears and her questions, Mary makes the decision to accede to God’s request that she carry the Christ into the world. The angel has revealed to her that she is highly favored by the Most High and that she will be called blessed for ages to come.

The spiritual writer, Anthony DeMello, tells this story: “A man traversed land and sea to check for himself the master’s extraordinary fame. ‘What miracles has your master worked,’ he asked a disciple. The disciple replied: ‘Well, there are miracles and miracles. In your land it is regarded as a miracle if God does someone’s will. In our country it is regarded as a miracle if someone does the will of God.’” Today we celebrate a miracle of the latter sort. Mary’s response to the messenger from God has been repeated down through the ages: “May it be done to me according to your word.” Fittingly, the ideal disciple of the Lord echoes her son as reported in the Letter to the Hebrews: “I come to do your will.” On the simplest level, one difficulty in doing the will of God, at least in our culture, seems to be our expectation that it should be as evident as it seems to be in today’s Gospel. The messengers that bring us God’s direction are more ordinary. The will of God – if we are listening or mindful – comes through unlikely, even disturbing, ways: in all that happens to us and in the needs and difficulties of those we encounter in the course of the day.

Think of people with little children; they know what it is to do the will of God. Their lives are determined, directed, often with great benefit to their character, I every cry and movement of their children. Mindfulness of the needs and concerns of those around us, of our world, both immediate and global, brings us the will of God. Good listening can bring about such miracles as the carrying out of God’s will in our lives and actions. Often times, the things we do throughout our day may seem mundane and less than important. However, by paying attention to the Holy Spirit, we might be surprised to find that we too have been asked to carry Christ into the world.