Dear St. Rita Families,
Another Solemnity in Lent! Saturday, March 25 is the Solemnity of the Annunciation. You know the story – the Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary and informs her of God’s favor and of His mission for her. When she accepts with those famous words, “Ecce ancilla Domini. Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum”, she becomes the Mother of the Son of God, because the Son of God has become man!
There is a reason that we celebrate the Annunciation exactly nine months before Christmas. Today’s feast is one of two days during the liturgical year when in the Ordinary Form of the Mass we genuflect (instead of the normal ‘profound bow’) during the part of the Creed that we say, “And by the power of the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.” We fall to our knees at the presence of this Mystery, namely that God took to Himself a human nature and dwelt among us.
The implications (and fallout!) of this truth are astounding. Aside from the pro-life indications, we find that not only are God and man not fundamentally opposed to each other, but somehow our finite humanity is able to be raised to and united with God’s divinity. This is, of course, divine action, and is fundamentally the reason that we cannot achieve salvation by any work of our own. In other words, without the intervention of God, no one is saved! God’s intervention is itself a Person, a Member of the Blessed Trinity. The true Son of God took flesh as the true son of Mary, which means that He took His human nature from her. For this reason, God preserved Mary from all taint of sin (including original sin), so that she could pass onto Jesus an intact human nature and be truly His Mother.
Sure, God could have done it some other way, but He wanted to include woman in His plan of salvation too, since it was not only Adam who sinned in Eden, but also Eve. And, while Christ’s redemptive action alone is superabundantly sufficient (and all that is, strictly speaking, necessary) for the salvation of all men and all women, we recognize that there is a certain fittingness to the presence and role of Our Lady. Just as sin came through a virgin in a garden at a tree, so redemption comes through a Virgin in a Garden (Jn 19:41) at a Tree. Whereas Eve becomes the mother of all those living a terrestrial life after sin (Gen 3:20), Mary becomes the Mother of all those living life in Christ at the Cross (Jn 19:26-27). Jesus even refers to His Mother using the title ‘woman’, which was Eve’s name before the fall of man.
In the same way that God and man are not opposed, men and women are not opposed either. When we work together according to the roles that God has given to each of us, we can accomplish God’s plan. Both men and women can have a divine fruitfulness, and in Jesus and Mary we are given a model for men and for women, respectively. In Jesus, we see a man empty Himself of His majesty for the sake of calling His people back to Himself, ultimately dying at their hands for their sake. In His death, He produces fruit 100-fold in resurrection for all who follow Him. In Mary, we see a woman completely surrendered to the mission of another to the point of losing Him, yet she is not without a voice, nor without a role. In Her surrender, She is given to mother all those who receive Jesus’ resurrection, both bringing them to life and nurturing them.
All of this was contained in Mary’s “Fiat”: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.”
In Christ,
Fr. Christensen