Homily: Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

Readings: Is 7:10-14; 8:10; Ps 40; Heb 10:4-10; Lk 1:26-38

It's especially fitting today, in the midst of Lent, that we should celebrate this wonderful Marian solemnity, the Annunciation of the Lord.

"Mary, full of grace" [Lk 1:28] the angel exclaimed, and that's exactly what he meant. Mary is literally full of God's grace, so full there's no room for any sin within her. And how could it be otherwise? For God incarnate must enter the world via a spotless vessel, born of woman but a woman without sin.

"Hail, Mary, full of grace..."

Here Mary reminds us how to celebrate Lent. She's the perfect Lenten figure because on this day she anticipates the Paschal Mystery. Without her fiat, without her declaration of faith, without the word of Mary, the Word of God could not be Emmanuel, God with us.

What did the angel tell her? 

"You shall conceive and bear a son...the Son of the Most High" [Lk 1:31-32].

And Mary agreed: 

"Let it be done to me according to your word" [Lk 1:38].

With this, Jesus is not simply in her thoughts and hopes, in her prayers and yearnings. He is in her flesh. His flesh is her flesh. Hers is His. She waits only to see His face and offer Him to the world. She knows she is blessed, for she told us...

"...He has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name" [Lk 1:48-49].

Words we too should pray every day, because God has done great things for us well. He has given us His Son, a Son who in complete humility takes on our flesh, redeems us through His passion and death, and defeats death through His Resurrection. Christ's redemption of the world requires the consent of Mary.

Brothers and sisters, we are created in and for love. Had God imposed His will on us, we couldn't share His divine life, which is freedom. If Jesus were incarnate Himself, without the free consent of Mary, it would not be true love. Through her love of Jesus, Mary is the first disciple, and the one who lived discipleship to the fullest. Jesus told us clearly what it means to be a disciple:

"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother...the ones who listen to the word of God and act on it" [Mk 3:35; Lk 8:21]

The Visitation

This is Mary: she who hears God's word and acts. We see it throughout Luke's gospel. What does she do after the Annunciation? She visits her kinswoman, Elizabeth, who was with child. Elizabeth was old and needed the help of her young relative. Mary's first act as Jesus' mother is to carry him, not for herself, but for someone in need. No wonder that when Mary greeted Elizabeth, John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth's womb.

Mary, the perfect disciple, follows Jesus. She is blessed, not only because she bore God's Son, but also because she is the prime example of those who listen to the word of God and keep it. She follows Jesus all the way to the Cross, and beyond. She remains faithful even after her Son's death, listening to the Lord, joining the apostles in prayer, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Just as Jesus came to Mary in poverty and human weakness, He comes to us today, not in glory, but in helplessness.

Just as He came to Mary as a powerless infant, Jesus comes to us in the hungry and thirsty, in the stranger, in the lonely, in the sick and dying, in the confused and troubled, in the addicted and the imprisoned. Again in her Magnificat she sings:

"He has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty...for he has remembered his promise of mercy" [Lk 1:51-55]

The trouble is, today God chooses to feed the hungry not with miraculous manna from heaven, but through us. The hungers of humanity cry out to us: hunger for bread, hunger for justice, hunger for love, hunger for truth, hunger for God. The cry is more than a human cry; it is God's Word calling to us.

I can't tell you what God is calling you to do, for God works differently through each of us. But I can assure you He's not telling you to do nothing; for we are Jesus' disciples, in imitation of Mary, only if we listen to his word and act on it.

Lent, then, is a time for action. How did Jesus put it? 

"Repent and believe in the Gospel" [Mk 1:15].

This kind of discipleship is not without cost. "A sword shall pierce your heart," Mary was told - just as it must pierce the heart of every true disciple. But like Mary we can take comfort in God's presence within us. As Jesus told us, if we love Him and keep His word, His Father will love us and they will come and make their home with us.

Christ within us. Christ all around us. Christ leading us. We need only murmur with Mary, "Whatever you say, Lord," and then do it.