Faith Matters

Feast Day of the Annunciation of Mary – Saturday, 25 March

On 25 March 25 we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. The Annunciation of the Lord refers to the time when the angel Gabriel visited the Blessed Virgin Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of the Saviour. For the whole Church, but particularly for we Marists, this is a significant feast day as it commemorates the time when God entered into our world and chose Mary to be the mother of his son, Jesus, the one whose life has changed ours.

The life of Mary and the significance she has for our life of faith today is extraordinary. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a 14 or 15-year-old girl who is about to become a political refugee. Who in ancient Israel would care about what a girl in the Middle East would be thinking about, who would care about what was going on in her mind? She could easily have been a person who ‘gets hidden away quietly.’ She could, at best, become a forgotten and invisible person.

And yet, it is this despised and oppressed body that becomes pregnant with God, the Logos, the Word made Flesh, It was Mary’s flesh, offered to Christ’s that sets Mary above all creatures. Her simple and un-self-centred ‘Mary life’ that has become marvellous and castle-like has forged paths leading everywhere. Once so girlish and fragmented, she finds herself becoming the mother of Jesus.

The English poet and Anglican priest, John Donne, speaks to the Virgin Mary of the incarnation, the Christmas event that takes place in her body, in a poem called “La Corona” or “The Crown”:

• Thou art now
• Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother.

She is the Theotokos – the birth giver of God – and for this reason she holds such a special place in our tradition of faith. Mary is not a doctrine or an idea; she is a real woman with real presence whose “…hands steadied the first steps of him who steadied the earth to walk upon; her lips helped the Word of God to form his first human words.” (St. John of Damascus).

As we celebrate this feast day, let us pray that all people of goodwill come to know the beauty of Mary’s exemplarity in her response to God.

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