GOSPEL REFLECTION, WEDNESDAY, 5TH WEEK IN LENT, 25 MARCH 2026, THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD, SOLEMNITY

Luke 1:26-38.  There are two intricately linked ways to approach this particular event in Luke’s gospel.  Both have had massive significance in Christian practice and liturgy.  One way is to recognise that this event as an announcement of the birth of the Lord Jesus.  The other way is to recognise that it is also an announcement of the vocation of Mary, Jesus’ mother, to her mission as the mother of the Lord, and of the miraculous circumstances of that call.  Again and again in Holy Scripture God acts in surprising ways to give revealing signs as to who Jesus really is.  Both ways show us that this account is deeply rooted in the Old Testament, and essential to the New Testament’s understanding that Jesus fulfills its prophecies of the Messiah.

As an announcement of Jesus’ birth, the Annunciation is astonishing and quite remarkable.  Some Theologians through the ages have called it a ‘scandal of particularity.’  By this they mean to ask why at this time in  human history?  Why in such a marginal, obscure place far from the larger human situation?  Why to the person of Mary, in her youth, who in human terms was poor, politically and economically insignificant.  Why?  The Father chose to make this revealing act in fulfillment of the scriptures and as a revelation that Jesus was indeed Messiah.  God’s ways are not humanity’s ways. 

As an announcement of Mary’s vocation and her exalted mission among us, the Annunciation is truly an astonishing act of the Father.  The fulfillment of that mission, long foreseen by the prophets of the Old Testament, depends on her decision despite ‘being greatly troubled to accept it in all humility as her role in life.  One supposes she could have declined; then human history  would have been totally different.  But she DID accept and so became an essential participant in the salvation of the world and of humanity.  That is why we cherish her, love her, and treasure her as our mother too.  She was the first of us, a true and faithful disciple of the child born to her as our saviour and Lord.