Reflection on Today’s Feast

By Fr. Thomas R. Slon, SJ

Nine months from today is Christmas!  An odd thing to note in the middle of Lent.  But it is no accident, no quaint coincidence that the Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation today.  The feast might just as well be called the Incarnation of God.

This is the day on which the relationship between God and the world pivoted, changed irrevocably.  God humbles himself and the Word becomes flesh by being conceived in the womb of the Virgin of Nazareth.

This is the day on which God revealed God’s very self as Triune.  The Father sends the Son into the world to be human in every respect, through conception in the womb and some nine months later, through the trauma of birth, a newborn.  It is the Spirit who overcomes this young woman, scarcely old enough for motherhood. She conceives God’s only begotten Son.

This feast is a day of remembrance and celebration for Jesuits.  It marks the beginning of the mission, what God ultimately intends for the world, the salvation of the world through Jesus, God’s only begotten Son. It is the mission we Jesuits long to be a part of.

Ignatius, in the Spiritual Exercises, has us consider the Triune God, the Three Persons, viewing the world, all of creation, and all the people in all their dealings, all their reality; and know intimately God’s desire for the world and how much it is that the world needs what God intends. Ignatius has us consider the conversation among the Three, to listen as they say, “Let us work the redemption of the world.” We are to consider how people of the world talk among themselves, and listen to their inanities, the cursing, the bargaining.  And finally, we are to listen to the angel, the ambassador of God, as the angel does his work, delivering the message to the Lady.  We listen to her response.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, an abbot of the twelfth century, offers us an Ignatian mediation well before the time of Ignatius.  (Praying with the imagination did not begin with Ignatius!) As if in the scene with the angel, St. Bernard speaks of the great desire of the world for this moment of grace and decision.  The angel has spoken, and as if all the world awaits Mary’s response, St. Bernard prays urgently:

“This is what the whole world waits for, prostrate at your feet.  It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

“Answer quickly, O Virgin. Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord. Answer with a word, receive the Word of God. Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word. Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.”

At last, she speaks.  “I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to your Word.” 

So God reveals God’s self decisively in his Son who humbles himself to become human for our sake, to show us the way to the Father. God does this through the woman, the woman we celebrate with such love today.

But this isn’t just history, done and gone, only for our memories.  The incarnation of God is more than a moment in history.  The child Mary bore becomes the Christ we adore and the Christ we wish to serve in his people.  This is the same Christ who comes so near to us that we now bear Him within ourselves, in our lives and in our very bodies. No angel Gabriel for us, except perhaps the angel at the empty tomb who tells us He is not here among the dead.  He is alive and still laboring, still suffering, still among his people, still desiring to be incarnate in the world. Perhaps all the world does not wait for our decision, our “fiat,” but the Lord does, the One who bids us join him in his campaign, under the standard of the cross, to the glory of God.

It is no wonder that Ignatius had such great devotion to Our Lady. It is no wonder that Ignatius has us beg her to place us with her Son. How could she refuse us if we but ask from the heart?