Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Anchoress

Home
Catholic
Feast of the Annunciation

Feast of the Annunciation

Last updated on: March 24, 2015 at 8:12 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Feast of the Annunciation 2015-03-24T20:12:02+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

“The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary,”
R: And she conceived by the Holy Spirit

— The Angelus

A nearby parish rings the Angelus bells twice a day, and I love it. Sometimes in Manhattan, you can hear a church ringing the Angelus. People hurry by; possibly few of them even hear the bells, and those who do may think they are simply tolling 6PM, or noon.

The Angelus is a devotion of the Church. At the tolling of the bells, signifying mid-day or evening prayer, a leader will intone, “The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary…” and the response is as above. There is more.

I imagine the Angelus, and the focus on the Annunciation, is one more reason why non-Catholics think of Catholics as “Mary-worshipers.”

We are not worshiping Mary, of course. But, after Christmas and Easter the Feast of the Annunciation is our most solemn day, because it is the day we celebrate the beginning of the whole pageant of salvation. As with the Incarnation and the Resurrection, the Annunciation provides rich and infinite spiritual nourishment for us, because it is a mystery that can never be fully grasped, it’s lessons never completely learned. There is always more insight to come; those insights tantalize and draw us ever closer to the Creator, who teaches us about ourselves, in Him.

So, while we do not “worship” Mary, we acknowledge her as “the New Eve,” a woman as important to the whole mechanism of our knowing God – of His giving Himself to us – as the first Eve. She is “the woman clothed with the sun.” She is the woman who “gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne…”

Yes, only a woman, but that’s one peculiarly blessed and holy woman. In medieval times people would approach the Mother of the King with due honor, asking her to intercede at the throne on their behalf. So do we. In Luke 11, when someone called out to Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which gave you suckle” he corrected them about who what Mary was: “rather,” he said, “blessed are they who hear the word of God, and accept it.”

As always, the vespers for tonight anticipate the Feast – I’m sorry I did not have time to record them, as they’re particularly lovely. The antiphons and readings of sundown help set the mind’s focus on tomorrow’s Gospel reading.

Tonight we read:

This is what we proclaim to you:
what was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we have looked upon
and our hands have touched –
we speak of the world of life.
This life became visible;
we have seen and bear witness to it,
and we proclaim to you the eternal life
that was present to the Father
and became visible to us.
— 1 John 1:1-2

Our Dominican Nun pals over at Summit have a lovely tradition for this Vespers, whereby one of the novices – sometimes but not always the “newest” gives a sermon for the day. Their Sr. Maria Teresa preached instructively:

Eve ate the forbidden fruit to raise man to the level of God, and thus disfigured the very image of God within man. God, to redeem man, lowered Himself to become man. That which Eve ran from, God in His own person has embraced. Through Eve the image of God in man became disfigured, and so it pleased God that His image should come through a new Eve to inaugurate His new creation, His redemption of man. God’s new Eve was Mary.

Mary, alone among Eve’s descendants, was preserved from original sin at her conception. Mary and Eve were the only two women in history who were given the opportunity to choose the good without the hindrance of disorderly passions, the effects of original sin. Mary was completely free, as Eve was, to choose the good. Whereas Eve doubted God’s fatherly love for her, Mary fully believed that God is Father, that He could conceive the Child He promised within her womb. Eve grasped at the forbidden fruit and by that sin tore man from God. Mary received the promised Fruit in her womb, the Fruit that restored man to God. Eve conceived a son, Cain, who killed his brother because his brother found favor with God while he himself did not. Mary conceived a Son, Jesus, who gave up His own life for his brothers because His brothers did not find favor with God while He did. Eve used her freedom to choose death but Mary, in her freedom, chose life. Tertullian writes, “As Eve had believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced.”

As Eve’s sin was the cause of the condemnation for herself and for the whole human race, so too was Mary’s fiat the cause of salvation for us all. As man ran in ignorance from his own nature into the depths of damnation, God, in His supreme goodness, united Himself to man’s nature that man might be restored. To end with a quote from Augustine, “For this purpose the Eternal Word came upon earth, to make known to man how dearly God loved him.”

Sort of flies in the face of those who think of Christians and Catholics as denigrating women, doesn’t it? By the world’s measure, the power of a woman lies in what she “does.” By Christ’s measure – by God’s – woman is intrinsically powerful, simply in her being. She is afforded the power, freedom and respect to “make” or “break” mankind’s connection to the Creator.

Patrick O’ Hannigan has a more “whimsical” take.

Previous Post

March 24, 2009

"The Devil's Own" at Notre Dame

Next Post

March 25, 2009 A Dazzling Set-down

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How old was Moses when he died?

Select your answer to see how you score.

100 years 90 years 110 years 120 years