The feast of the Annunciation celebrates the very moment in which the divine and human natures came together in Jesus Christ. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary… And the angel said to her, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God."
It was not too long after this that the Virgin Mary would bring her divine child to present him in the temple. She then heard the prophecy of holy Simeon: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
The Mother of God is the Mother of Sorrows. The humanity with which the Son of God united himself was taken from the Virgin’s own body; the body Jesus offered on the cross was taken from Mary, and the blood he poured out first flowed in the sacred veins of his mother. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, the New Eve says of the New Adam. The Mother and the Son were so intimately united that they were joined in both their joys and their sorrows.
The fiat of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane echoes in chiasmic fashion that of his Mother at the Annunciation. An angel came to announce to Mary that the Son of God would take flesh in her womb; let it be done to me according to your word, she said. And as he began his agony, Jesus said, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done; and an angel came to strengthen him. She assented to the Word taking flesh; he assented to offering that same flesh for the salvation of the world.
