March 25th – The Annunciation of the Lord

We celebrate today one of the greatest feasts of the liturgical calendar: the day when Our Lord Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of Our Lady by the power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, this feast was considered so important that it once marked the start of the new calendar year, symbolising that all time belongs to Christ.

The readings for today are all concerned with the loving obedience of men and women that is needed for God’s will to be done in this world. Since God chose to create the human being with free will, it is necessary for him to incline his will toward God for the Kingdom of God to be made real in this world. The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tell us that the person who does the will of God is more pleasing to the Lord than the one who offers sacrifices and offerings.

Our Blessed Mother sets us the example of this perfect obedience to the Father in her humble and joyful acceptance of the most wonderful work that God was to do through her. By agreeing to be the Mother of God, the God-bearer, Theotokos, she made a space for Christ in this world and made possible the salvation of all humanity. In her readiness to do the divine will, Mary shows us what is possible when we allow our lives to be shaped by God’s loving providence. As the handmaid of the Lord, Mary embraced thorns as well as roses, suffering most deeply the passion of her son within her heart, and yet it was through the suffering that Christ and his mother endured that we have been made sons and daughters of God, united in Christ’s mystical body. This Lent may we learn better to lift up our hearts to the Lord, the Father who longs to give us all that is good, that he may do great things in this world through us.