March 25, 2025
Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
Lectionary: 545
Reading 1
The LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying:
Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;
let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!
But Ahaz answered,
“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”
Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us!”
Responsorial Psalm
R. (8a and 9a) Here I am,
Lord; I come to do your will.
Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
but ears open to obedience you gave me.
Holocausts or sin-offerings you sought not;
then said I, “Behold I come.”
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
“In the written scroll it is prescribed for me,
To do your will, O my God, is my delight,
and your law is within my heart!”
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
I announced your justice in the vast assembly;
I did not restrain my lips, as you, O LORD, know.
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Your justice I kept not hid within my heart;
your faithfulness and your salvation I have spoken of;
I have made no secret of your kindness and your truth
in the vast assembly.
R. Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats
take away sins.
For this reason, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
in holocausts and sin offerings you took no delight.
Then I said, ‘As is written of me in the scroll,
behold, I come to do your will, O God.’”
First he says, “Sacrifices and offerings,
holocausts and sin offerings,
you neither desired nor delighted in.”
These are offered according to the law.
Then he says, “Behold, I come to do your will.”
He takes away the first to establish the second.
By this “will,” we have been consecrated
through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Verse Before the Gospel
The Word of God became flesh and made his dwelling among us;
and we saw his glory.
Gospel
The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin’s name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.”
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
Then the angel departed from her.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032525.cfm
Commentary on Isaiah
7:10-14,8:10; Hebrews 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38
In the entrance antiphon for today’s Mass, we say:
Behold! I have come to do your will, O God!
In a way, today’s feast should be on a par with Christmas.
From one point of view, it is a greater occasion than Christmas. The Child
would not have been born if he had not first been conceived. However, even
today, when an actual moment of conception is not known with accuracy, it is
the visible experience of the birth—the coming into the outside world—which
makes much greater impact. We all celebrate our birth-day but not our
conception-day, even though the latter is the moment when we came into being.
Together with the Trinity, an acceptance of the Incarnation
is one of the pedestals which defines our Christian faith. It was at the
Annunciation that the Incarnation began to become a reality. It was at this
moment that:
…the Word became flesh and lived among us… (John
1:14)
Today should be a special day of praise and thanksgiving for
all of us.
This event, in many ways—even for those who do not believe
in the Christian message—is one of the major turning points, if not the major
turning point, in the history of our planet. It was not only Christians who
celebrated our entry into the Third Millennium, even though non-believers
either denied, or ignored, or were ignorant of the conception and birth of
Jesus which established the occasion.
The Gospel account of this momentous event, in one sense,
owes a great deal to the imagery and prophecies of the Hebrew Testament, as
well as having a charming simplicity which belies the awesomeness of the
occasion. It takes place in the home of a young girl, in an obscure town looked
down on by many. As Nathanael asked:
Can anything good come from Nazareth? (John
1:46)
This is surely one of the most ironic questions ever asked!
It is seen as the fulfilment of a prophecy which is found in
Isaiah, and which forms the First Reading for today. King Ahaz is offered a
sign by God, which he refuses. God gives him one anyway. This sign will be the
birth of a child whose name will be Immanuel, which means ‘God is
with us’. Even though Isaiah primarily seems to be speaking of a son for King
Ahaz, the solemn name given to the child seems to indicate something more
significant, a decisive intervention by God and the sending of a Messiah. So
the text has been traditionally taken in the Church as a prophecy for the birth
of Christ.
The particular words of the prophecy are clearly linked with
the Annunciation event:
…the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young
woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel.
The Greek translation of the Hebrew Testament, known as the
Septuagint, reads ‘virgin’, whereas in the Hebrew original, almah can mean a
young girl or a recently married woman. The Gospel has adopted the Septuagint
meaning and sees in this text a prophecy of the virginal conception of Jesus,
which is affirmed in today’s Gospel reading. The Gospel scene is also
reminiscent of the announcement by God’s angel of the birth of Samson (see
Judges chap 13).
Mary, we are told, is already betrothed to a man called
Joseph. This means that she is committed to be his wife, but they have not come
together or had intimate relations. She is still, as the Gospel states, a
virgin.
God’s emissary, the angel Gabriel, enters the house and
greets her in words that alarm the young girl:
Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.
The traditional greeting is “Hail, full of grace!”, but the
Greek chaire implies joy, the joy that the coming of the
Messiah brings. And ‘grace’ (charis) is the gratuitous love of God
extended to, and experienced by, the receiver. Mary was:
…much perplexed by [the angel’s] words
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
But the angel goes on to reassure Mary, although in language
that must have mystified her even more. Basically, she is being told that she
is going to be the mother of a son, whom she is to call Jesus, which means
‘Yahweh saves’. But this is no ordinary son. The angel describes him in
extraordinary language which, in fact, recalls many passages from the Hebrew
Testament referring to the Messiah:
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most
High…
This is a title which can mean the ‘divine Son of God’, or
the Messiah. That her Son is to be the Messiah is indicated by the angel’s
saying that:
…the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor
David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there
will be no end.
Mary is even more puzzled and disturbed. How can she
conceive a son when she is a virgin and has not yet had intimate relations with
her husband-to-be? She clearly understands that the conception is to take place
very soon.
The angel replies by explaining that:
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he
will be called Son of God.
The shadow or cloud is the creative and protective presence
of the Lord. The conceiving of this child is clearly to be the direct work of
the Holy Spirit. The Father is God himself and the child is the divine Son of
God, who, while remaining God, will “be made flesh”. From the moment of
conception the child is fully God and fully a human person. And the child is
called “holy” because, though like us in all things, there was no taint of sin
in him (how could or why would God sin against himself!).
It is doubtful if, even after these explanations, Mary
really understood the implications of what she had been told. But she
recognised the messenger as coming from God and, in deep faith and trust,
accepted what she was being asked to do and be:
Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me
according to your word.
This is Mary’s fiat (‘let it be’, from the
Latin version of her words) by which she said an unconditional ‘Yes’ to what
God had asked of her.
Later on, when Mary is praised by a woman in a crowd for
having produced such a wonderful son as Jesus, Jesus had replied,
Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and
obey it! (Luke 11:28)
And here is Mary’s true greatness, not so much that she was
chosen to be the Mother of God, but that she responded with such generosity.
And, right up to the very end, she stood by her Son.
In that she resembles Jesus himself, whose relationship to
his Father is described in the Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews.
The passage speaks of the ineffectiveness of offerings of animals for bringing
reconciliation with God. It is the offering by Jesus of his own self totally to
his Father which alone is effective. Jesus says:
See, I have come to do your will, O God.
This was the essence of Jesus’ life. There was a struggle at
the end as the horrors of the Passion drew near. But, after prayer made in
blood and sweat, he surrendered totally:
…not my will but yours be done. (Luke 22:42)
And his last words on the cross were, “It is finished.” He
had emptied himself totally and given all to the Father. In this is our
salvation.
Mary, too, said that ‘Yes’ in the little house in Nazareth.
It was, as was said above, a pivotal moment in the world’s history. Things
would never be the same again. Let us thank Mary today for her unconditional
‘Yes’ and let us ask her to help us to say our ‘Yes’ to God, today and for the
rest of our lives.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Solemnity – The Annunciation of the
Lord
Opening Prayer
God of the poor and the humble, we thank You today for
choosing Mary as the
Virgin Mother of Jesus, Your Son. Her faith and willing
service opened the way to Your new world. Dispose
us to seek Your will and to cooperate with Your plans that we too, like Mary,
may give to the world its Savior Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Lord.
Gospel Reading – Luke 1: 26-38
In the sixth
month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the
virgin's name was Mary.
He went in and
said to her, “Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favor! The Lord is with you.” She
was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could
mean, but the angel said to her, “Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God's
favor. Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name
Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord
God will give Him the throne of His ancestor David; He will rule over the House
of Jacob for ever and His reign will have no end.”
Mary said to the
angel, “But how can this come about, since I have no knowledge of man?”' The
angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son
of God. And I tell you this too: your cousin Elizabeth also, in her old age,
has conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth
month, for nothing is impossible to God.”
Mary said, “You see before you
the Lord's servant, let it happen to me as you have said.” And the angel left
her.
Reflection
The visit of the angel to Mary reminds us
of the visit of God to different women of the Old Testament: Sarah, mother of
Isaac (Gen 18: 9-15), Anne, mother of Samuel (1 Sam 1: 9-18), the mother of
Samson (Jgs 13: 2-5). All of them announced the birth of a son with an
important mission in God’s plan. The account begins with the expression “in the sixth month.” It is the sixth
month of the pregnancy of Elizabeth. The need of Elizabeth, a woman advanced in
age who is expecting her first son with the risk of delivery, is the background
of this entire story. Elizabeth is mentioned at the beginning (Lk 1: 26) and at
the end of the visit of the angel (Lk 1: 36, 39).
•
The angel says, “Rejoice, you who enjoy God’s
favor, the Lord is with you!” Similar
words were said also to Moses (Ex 3: 12), to Jeremiah (Jer 1: 8), to Gideon
(Jgs 6: 12) and to others with an important mission in God’s plan. Mary is
surprised at the greeting and tries to understand the significance of these
words. She is practical. She wants to understand. She does not accept just any
invitation.
•
The angel answers: “Do not be afraid!” Just as
it happened in the visit of the angel to Zechariah, the first greeting of God
is always: “Do not be afraid!” Immediately the angel recalls the promises of
the past which will be fulfilled thanks to the son who will be born and who is
to receive the name of Jesus. He will be called the Son of the Most High and in
Him the Kingdom of God will be realized. This is the explanation of the angel
in such a way that Mary is not afraid.
•
Mary is aware of the mission which she is about
to receive, but she continues to be practical. She does not allow herself to be
drawn by the greatness of the offer and knows her condition. She examines the
offer through criteria which she has available. Humanly speaking, it was not
possible: “But how can this come about? I have no knowledge of man.”
•
The angel explains that the Holy Spirit, present
in God’s Word since the creation (Gen 1: 2), is able to realize things which
seem impossible. This is why the Holy One who will be born of Mary will be
called Son of God. The miracle repeats itself right up to today. When the Word
of God is accepted by us, something new happens, thanks to the power of the
Holy Spirit! Something new and surprising such as a son born of a virgin or a
son born to a woman of advanced age, like Elizabeth, whom all said was barren,
that she could not have children! And the angel adds, “See, your cousin
Elizabeth also, in her old age, has conceived a son, and she whom people called
barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible with God.”
•
The response of the angel clarifies everything
for Mary, and she surrenders: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, may it be
done to me according to your word.” Mary uses for herself the title of a
servant, Handmaid of the Lord. This title from Isaiah represents the mission of
the people not as a privilege, but rather as a service to other people (Is 42:
1-9; 49: 3-6). Later Jesus will define His mission as a service: “I have not
come to be served, but to serve!” (Mt 20: 28). He learned from his Mother!
Reflection
•
What struck you the most in the visit of the
angel Gabriel to Mary?
•
Jesus praises his Mother when He says: “Blessed
are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” (Lk 11: 28). How does Mary
relate to the Word of God during the visit of the angel?
Concluding Prayer
To Yahweh belong the earth and all it contains, the world
and all who live there; it is He who laid its foundations on the seas, on the
flowing waters fixed it firm. (Ps 24: 1-2)
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