A Reflection for the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
“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.” Today, on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, we remember these words spoken by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. Just a young girl from Nazareth, Mary must have been gripped with fear as she received this call to become the one and only theotokos (“God-bearer”) for the redemption of souls. Heart pounding, breath caught in her chest, she must have sensed that her life would never be the same. And yet, in a singularly beautiful expression of faith and trust in God, Mary gave her whole self—body, mind and soul—over to the fulfilment of the divine will.
The story of the Annunciation reminds us that we all, in our own ways, are called to be equally faithful and trusting “God-bearers” — to hold Christ ever in our hearts and give “birth” to his loving presence in our world each and every day. Like Mary, we may find ourselves gripped at times with fear and uncertainty about what transformations the Lord will enact in our lives. But despite her initial fear, our Blessed Mother assented to carrying the child Jesus in her womb. She held him in her arms day after day, week after week, up until his death on the cross. She modeled for us the way that we Christians must carry the love of the Lord wherever we go, no matter the cost.
C.S. Lewis picks up this idea of “carrying” the Lord within us always in his book Mere Christianity. He asks us each to imagine ourselves as a “living house.” When God comes to rebuild that house, Lewis says, we may think we understand how God is changing us little by little, how God is healing the broken parts of us, mending the drains and gutters that we knew needed fixing all along. But soon, as Lewis goes on to say: “[God] starts knocking the house in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense… The explanation is that [God] is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but [God] is building a palace. [And God] intends to come and live in it.”
I have kept this passage close to my heart for some time now. I know, all too well, how much it can “hurt abominably” to tear down the walls that have kept us at a “safe” distance from our brothers and sisters in Christ. It might not “make any sense at all,” at least at first, to dismiss the earthly attachments on which we have built our houses like sand. In moments riddled with pain and confusion, however, we can call to mind once again the quiet strength of Mary’s fiat, which rings out like silver bells, clear and bright, to tame the swirls of doubt lingering in our midst.
Throughout the Lenten season, as we seek to grow ever deeper in our faith and welcome the divine indwelling, let us pray that God may soften our steely countenances, ease our tensed shoulders and melt the ice in our veins. Let God fill our lungs with a divine fragrance to breathe into this hurting and broken world. Let God come to rest on the pillowy cushions of our hearts, let God shine through the radiant chandeliers of our eyes, let God glitter in the words that fall from our lips like diamonds—snow-white crystals arduously strained, squeezed, tested and born anew from once-lifeless coal.
Though we may not receive precisely the same words that Mary did, let us take her as our model in daring to cherish the Christ-light within and hold it high for all those around us, even when we cannot know what to expect as a result. Let us follow her example of faith and hope in moments of uncertainty and change. And in doing so, let us offer our whole selves up to be refashioned, reshaped, reborn into a gleaming palace for our Lord to dwell in as his own, now and forever. Amen.
