The feast of the Annunciation commemorates the momentous occasion, described in the Gospels of Luke (1:26-38) and Matthew (1;18-25), when the archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary and announced to her 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.’
This feast was firmly established by the middle of the sixth century when the Emperor Justinian decreed in 561 that it should be celebrated throughout the empire on 25th March each year. More importantly, since it occurs 9 months before the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day, the Annunciation marks the actual incarnation of Jesus Christ – the moment that Jesus was conceived and that the Son of God became the son of the Virgin.
The festival celebrates two things:
- God’s action in entering the human world as Jesus to save humanity.
- Mary’s freely given willing acceptance of God’s will.
The Annunciation has produced three important liturgical texts, the Ave Maria, the Angelus, and the Magnificat.
- The angel’s greeting to Mary, which is traditionally translated as “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” (in Latin Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum) is the opening of the Ave Maria, and a part of the Catholic Rosary prayers.
- The Angelus consists of three Ave Marias, together with some additional material. It is said three times a day in the Roman Catholic and some Anglican Churches.
- The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord &c’ (in Latin Magníficat ánima mea Dóminum) is Mary’s response to the Annunciation. It is said or sung in the Anglican office of Evensong and in Roman Catholic Vespers.
Eastern Orthodox Christians have another rich strand of tradition which is derived from the Protevangelium of James and of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. These texts were circulating among the early Christians but are not included in the Bible we now know.
The Protevangelium describes how seven virgins were chosen to spin the thread for the Temple curtain that hung in front of the Holy of Holies and the ark of the covenant, the sign of the unbridgeable gulf between sinful humanity and God. Mary was assigned to weave the scarlet and purple threads. Only the High Priest ever entered behind the curtain and that only once a year to stand before the empty throne of God and to make peace between God and his people. But as Mary weaves this sign of separation she is gripped with holy fear and is interrupted at her work. As she pauses and goes to the well for water, she is greeted by the Archangel Gabriel but sees no one and returns anxious and flustered to the spinning wheel. This time she takes up the purple thread and Gabriel stands before her and announces her future. From the sanctuary of heaven God enters another sanctuary, the holy place of the human body of a young peasant woman who is enough of a stranger to fear and guilt to let him in wholeheartedly. God, as it were, steps through the veil himself. This, of course, is reflected at the Crucifixion when the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom as Jesus died. The old separation was over, the veil was torn enabling us all to enter the heavenly sanctuary: that is what is happening at every Eucharist. This is recalled in the ancient Liturgy of Saint James in ‘the prayer of the veil’.
This is the inmost mystery, the holiest of holies; the mystery and the fear are not because God is so strange and far away, but because he has come closer to us than we are to our own selves.
Dr Rowan Williams
Former Archbishop of Canterbury
Feature Image: (Venice) Annunciation by Giambattista Pittoni – Gallerie Accademia