‘Praise ye the Lord our God, who
hath not forsaken them that hope in Him. And by me, His handmaid, He hath
fulfilled His mercy, which He promised to the house of Israel; and He hath
killed the enemy of His people by my hand this night. . . . The almighty Lord
hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman, and hath
slain him.’ (Judith xiii. 17, 18 ; xvi. 7)
MARCH 25 THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE
EVER BLESSED VIRGIN
(from Dom Gueranger, Liturgical
Year, Lent)
THIS is a great day, not only to
man, but even to God Himself; for it is the anniversary of the most solemn
event that time has ever witnessed. On this day, the divine Word, by whom the
Father created the world, was made flesh in the womb of a virgin, and dwelt
among us. We must spend it in joy. Whilst we adore the Son of God who humbled
Himself by thus becoming Man, let us give thanks to the Father, who so loved
the world, as to give His only-begotten Son; let us give thanks to the Holy
Ghost, whose almighty power achieves the great mystery. We are in the very midst
of Lent, and yet the ineffable joys of Christmas are upon us: our Emmanuel is
conceived on this day, and, nine months hence, will be born in Bethlehem, and
the angels will invite us to come and honor the sweet Babe.
Upon the fall of our first
parents, God pronounced a triple sentence against the serpent, the woman, and
Adam. But in the midst of the anathemas then pronounced against us, a promise
was made us by our God; it was a promise of salvation, which enkindles hope
within us. In pronouncing sentence against the serpent, God said that his head should
one day be crushed, and that, too, by a woman. The time has come for the
fulfilment of this promise. The world has been in expectation for four thousand years;
and the hope of its deliverance has been kept up, in spite of all its crimes.
During this time, God has made use of miracles, prophecies, and types, as a
renewal of the engagement He has entered into with mankind. The blood of the
Messias has passed from Adam to Noah; from Sem to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;
from David and Solomon to Joachim; and now it flows in the veins of Mary,
Joachim’s daughter.
Mary is the woman by whom is to
be taken from our race the curse that lies upon it. God has decreed that she
should be Immaculate; and thereby has set an irreconcilable enmity between her
and the serpent. She, a daughter of Eve, is to repair all the injury done by
her mother’s fall; she is to raise up her sex from the degradation into which
it has been cast; she is to co-operate, directly and really, in the victory
which the Son of God is about to gain over His and our enemy.
A tradition, which has come down
from the apostolic ages, tells us that the great mystery of the Incarnation was
achieved on the twenty-fifth day of March. (St. Augustine, De Trinitate, Lib.
iv. cap. V) It was at the hour of midnight, when the most holy Virgin was alone
and absorbed in prayer, that the Archangel Gabriel appeared before her, and
asked her, in the name of the blessed Trinity, to consent to become the Mother
of God. Let us assist, in spirit, at this wonderful interview between the angel
and the Virgin: and, at the same time, let us think of that other interview
which took place between Eve and the serpent.
A holy bishop and martyr of the
second century, Saint Irenaeus, who had received the tradition from the very
disciples of the apostles, shows us that Nazareth is the counterpart of Eden. (Adv.
haereses. Lib. v. cap. xix) In the garden of delights there is a virgin and an angel;
and a conversation takes place between them. At Nazareth a virgin is also
spoken to by an angel, and she answers him; but the angel of the earthly paradise
is a spirit of darkness, and he of Nazareth is a spirit of light. In both
instances it is the angel that has the first word. ‘Why,’ said the serpent to
Eve, ‘hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of
paradise?’ His question implies impatience and a solicitation to evil; he has
contempt for the frail creature to whom he addresses it, but he hates the image
of God which is upon her. See, on the other hand, the angel of light; see with
what composure and peacefulness he approaches the Virgin of Nazareth, the new
Eve; and how respectfully he bows himself down before her: ‘Hail, full of grace!
The Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women!’ Such language is
evidently of heaven: none but an angel could speak thus to Mary.
Eve imprudently listens to the
tempter’s words; she answers him; she enters into conversation with one that
dares to ask her to question the justice of God’s commands. Her curiosity urges
her on. She has no mistrust in the serpent; this leads her to mistrust her
Creator. Mary hears what Gabriel has spoken to her; but this most prudent
Virgin is silent. She is surprised at the praise given her by the angel. The
purest and humblest of virgins has a dread of flattery; and the heavenly
messenger receives no reply from her, until he has fully explained his mission
by these words: ‘Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son: and thou shalt
call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most
High, and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father: and
He shall reign in the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there shall be
no end.’ What magnificent promises are these, which are made to her in the name
of God! What higher glory could she, a daughter of Juda, desire, knowing, as
she does, that the fortunate Mother of the Messias is to be the object of the
greatest veneration. And yet it tempts her not. She has forever consecrated her
virginity to God, in order that she may be the more closely united to Him by
love. The grandest possible privilege, if it is to be on the condition of
violating this sacred vow, would be less than nothing in her estimation. She
thus answers the angel: ‘How shall this be done because I know not man?’ The
first Eve evinces no such prudence. No sooner has the wicked spirit assured her
that she may break the commandment of her divine Benefactor and not die; that
the fruit of her disobedience will be a wonderful knowledge, which will put her
on an equality with God Himself: than she immediately yields; she is conquered.
Her self-love has made her at once forget both duty and gratitude: she is
delighted at the thought of being freed from the twofold tie which binds her to
her Creator.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, on the
other hand, forgets herself to think only of her God, and of the claims He has
to her service. The angel, charmed with this sublime fidelity, thus answers the
question put to him by Mary, and reveals to her the designs of God: ‘ The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow
thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son
in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren;
because no word shall be impossible with God.’ This said, he is silent, and
reverently awaits the answer of the Virgin of Nazareth. Let us look once more
at the virgin of Eden. Scarcer has the wicked spirit finished speaking than Eve
casts a longing look at the forbidden fruit: she is impatient to enjoy the
independence it is to bring her. She rashly stretches forth her hand; she
plucks the fruit; she eats it, and death takes possession of her: death of the
soul, for sin extinguishes the light of life; and death of the body, which,
being separated from the source of immortality, becomes an object of shame and
horror, and finally crumbles into dust.
But let us turn away our eyes
from this sad spectacle, and fix them on Nazareth. Mary has heard the angel’s
explanation of the mystery; the will of heaven is made known to her, and how
grand an honor it is to bring upon her! She, the humble maid of Nazareth, is to
have the ineffable happiness of becoming the Mother of God, and yet the
treasure of her virginity is to be left to her! Mary bows down before this
sovereign will, and says to the heavenly messenger: ‘Behold the handmaid of the
Lord: be it done to me according to thy word.’ Thus, as the great St. Irenaeus
and so many of the holy fathers remark, the obedience of the second Eve
repaired the disobedience of the first: for no sooner does the Virgin of
Nazareth speak her fiat, ‘Be it done,’ than the eternal Son of God (who, according
to the divine decree, awaited this word) is present, by the operation of the
Holy Ghost, in the chaste womb of Mary, and there He begins His human life. A
Virgin is a Mother, and Mother of God; and it is this Virgin’s consenting to
the divine will that has made her conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost. This
sublime mystery puts between the eternal Word and a mere woman the relations of
Son and Mother; it gives to the almighty God a means whereby He may, in a
manner worthy of His majesty, triumph over Satan, who hitherto seemed to have
prevailed against the divine plan. Never was there a more entire or humiliating
defeat than that which this day befell Satan. The frail creature, over whom he
had so easily triumphed at the beginning of the world, now rises and crushes
his proud head. Eve conquers in Mary. God would not choose man for the
instrument of His vengeance; the humiliation of Satan would not have been great
enough; and therefore she who was the first prey of hell, the first victim of the
tempter, is selected to give battle to the enemy. The result of so glorious a
triumph is that Mary is to be superior not only to the rebel angels, but to the
whole human race, yea, to all the angels of heaven. Seated on her exalted
throne, she, the Mother of God, is to be the Queen of all creation. Satan, in
the depths of the abyss, will eternally bewail his having dared to direct his
first attack against the woman, for God has now so gloriously avenged her; and
in heaven, the very Cherubim and Seraphim reverently look up to Mary, and deem
themselves honored when she smiles upon them, or employs them in the execution
of any of her wishes, for she is the Mother of their God. Therefore is it that
we, the children of Adam, who have been snatched by Mary’s obedience from the
power of hell, solemnize this day of the Annunciation.
Well may we say of Mary those
words of Debbora, when she sang her song of victory over the enemies of God’s people:
‘The valiant men ceased, and rested in Israel, until Debbora arose, a mother
arose in Israel. The Lord chose new wars, and He Himself overthrew the gates of
the enemies.’ (Judges v. 7, 8. 2) Let us also refer to the holy Mother of Jesus
these words of Judith, who by her victory over the enemy was another type of Mary:
‘Praise ye the Lord our God, who hath not forsaken them that hope in Him. And
by me, His handmaid, He hath fulfilled His mercy, which He promised to the house
of Israel; and He hath killed the enemy of His people by my hand this night. .
. . The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of
a woman, and hath slain him.’ (Judith xiii. 17, 18 ; xvi. 7)
Again, we
have the plaintive words of Jeremias: he gives us the very words used by his
enemies, when they conspired his death. It is evident, however, that the
Prophet is here a figure of one greater than himself. Let us, say these
enemies, put wood upon his bread: that is, let us put poisonous wood into what
he eats, that so we may cause his death. This is the literal sense of these
words, as applied to the Prophet; but how much more truly were they fulfilled
in our Redeemer! He tells us, that his Divine Flesh is the True Breads that
came down from heaven. This Bread, this Body of the Man-God, is bruised, torn,
and wounded; the Jews nail it to the Wood; so that, it is, in a manner, made
one with the Wood, and the Wood is all covered with Jesus' Blood. This Lamb of
God was immolated on the Wood of the Cross : it is by his immolation, that we
have had given to us a Sacrifice, which is worthy of God ; and it is by this
Sacrifice, that we participate in the Bread of Heaven, the Flesh of the Lamb,
our true Pasch. The Gradual, which is taken from the 34th Psalm, shows us the
humility and meekness of our Jesus under his sufferings. How they contrast with
the haughty pride of his enemies!
