Solemnity of Annunciation, March 25, 2025

Happy Solemnity of the Annunciation everyone! Today might be the Church’s most under-rated major feast. I’d argue that what we’re celebrating today, exactly 9 months before Christmas, is the most important event in human history. It’s when it all started... the moment of the Incarnation.

The moment is recorded of course in today’s Gospel from Luke. But maybe you’re like me, that you’ve Luke’s passage so many times, that it has lost its luster.

Allow me to give a few reminders to help it shine again…First, we do well to remember Mary’s age – it’s quite possible she was only 14 years old. So yes, we Catholics believe that teenagers and preteens are capable of spiritual greatness – just look at Carlo Acutis or Jacinta and Francisco- whose relics we had here in the church yesterday. Mary reminds us that children can be saints too.

Second, the Church Fathers loved to call Mary the ‘New Eve’ – indeed, if you flip around the letters of ‘AVE’ (A-V-E) of Gabriel’s AVE MARIA, then you get E-V-A, or Eva, which is Eve in Latin.  Mary’s ‘yes’ of humble obedience overturned Eve’s first disobedience. Her ‘Fiat’ to be the ‘handmaid of the Lord’ overturned Satan’s “Non serviam” – I will not serve.

 The fruit of Mary’s womb saved us from the fruit eaten by Eve. World history changed in the moment of the Annunciation.

Indeed, St Bernard writes that the whole world – including all the patriarchs back to Adam awaited Mary’s reply, almost holding their breath, awaiting Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message. God is so humble, that he allowed His entire plan to hinge on the faith of an indigent teenager. And precisely by magnifying God and not herself, Mary has become the most revered non-divine Person in the history of the world. Is there any woman in history who has had more true ‘followers’? Taylor Swift doesn’t even come close. Speaking of artists, how many artists have crafted masterpieces in her honor: the Notre Dame, the Pieta, and countless ‘Madonna and Child’ paintings. How many cities in the world are named after her? I can think of at least 3 capital cities in South America alone. Even the ‘Fiat’ car company named itself in honor of this moment.  Mary herself predicted it well: ‘All generations will call me blessed.’

Here is Mary’s lesson for us – the central paradox of Christianity, that the more that we abandon our own selfishness, and the more we allow God to act in us, the more that we are glorified.  To borrow from St Bonaventure – Mary is like the moon, and God is like the sun: she simply reflects God’s light. It was precisely by emptying herself that God could enter her empty womb.  After the Annunciation, Mary could truly say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  Within weeks of the annunciation, the tiny embryonic heart Jesus beat inside of her. As baby Jesus grew, some of his fetal cells crossed the placenta – as happens with all babies – and entered his mother’s organs. We call this fetal microchimerism, e.g., when fetal heart cells move into the mother’s heart tissue. This almost certainly happened between Christ and Mary: His cells lived in her body for many years. Thus, Mary was the first Tabernacle that housed Jesus’ body, and the Annunciation was like the first Eucharist – when Christ’s body and blood, soul and divinity entered into a human.

As we continue our own Eucharist here, I’d like suggest one piece of homework, based on our Gospel today. Some time today, try to say a single Hail Mary – but do it slowly. This was a penance I received about 10 years ago from then Father --now Bishop-- Cristiano – and it think it’s one of the best penances I ever received. Only by contemplating each word in my heart did I realize that all parts of the Hail Mary point back to God.  Mary always points to God. Indeed, as we continue this Mass, I pray we will follow the one and only command she gives in all of Scripture: “Do whatever he tells you”. Amen.