To await the birth of Christ, it seems, is to expect brilliance. Like the magi, all throughout Advent we hang our hopes on that burning star to guide our hearts to the light of the world, our newborn Savior. Already this year, however, three of my wreath’s candles are burnt down to stubs, and their detritus has piled up in waxy stalactites that have stained my end table with violet splotches. When I light what remains to pray, I can’t help but notice that the longer the flame burns, the more pathetic the surrounding wax becomes. It spills like hot tears and bends away from the sheer heat of the flame before crumpling in on itself and hardening into a new, gnarled configuration. Much like myself, the wax is weak and struggles to remain constant in the face of the flame. Contrary to expectation, the waiting that accompanies radiance is not always romantic.
The Annunciation described in Luke’s gospel today is, in my opinion, a too often romanticized portrait. The angel Gabriel’s announcement of the miraculous conception within Mary’s womb is regularly painted in rays of dazzling light, filigreed aureoles, and the seraphic face of a remarkably placid Virgin. Given that this is the moment Mary enters human history as the Mother of God, I sympathize with the artists who wished to paint her in her best light. Yet how much do we lose in so often gazing upon this serene Virgin Mother, the very image of composure in response to the request that would permanently alter the course of her life, not to mention the salvation of humankind?
As Catholics, we revere Mary for her total gift of self to the will of God, yet our paintings and prayers too often leave out the less than sublime realities of human emotion present when she became the first of us to personally accept Christ. For it is not a scene of self-assurance nor one of perfect submission without hesitation that we aspire to in making Mary our model for true faith. Rather, it is the deep recognition of fear and the conscious decision to keep faith amidst anxiety that make Mary’s “yes” mean everything.
The Annunciation is nothing more and nothing less than the story of the incredible faith of a teenage girl. It is the faith of someone barely beyond the age of childhood herself who is suddenly asked to bear the child of God, to face the scrutiny of a society who would mistake her faithfulness for infidelity, and to believe in a miracle that she herself struggles to understand. It is the gritted determination of a fierce girl of merely fourteen that later transforms into the quiet majesty of the woman in her forties who embodies the “stabat mater,” the mother who remains standing in the midst of unspeakable pain as she witnesses the brutal murder of her only child. Mary’s strength at the Annunciation is not the absence of fear but the unparalleled faith of a girl who persists in spite of it.
In reflecting on Mary, I take comfort in knowing that God does not call me to have perfect poise or confidence in the face of the darkness and uncertainty that lie ahead. Even when my light is low, He calls me in my weakness—melted and misshapen wax that I am—to trust Him and, like young Mary, to follow the flame.
