by Sister Rebecca
In today’s Gospel (Luke 1:26-38) we read and hear that stupendous and mind-boggling story leading to the incarnation, and we are invited to reflect on this passage with the eyes of faith, to delve below the surface and see what God is saying to us now.
The Angel Gabriel said to Mary: “Rejoice, so highly favored! The Lord is with you.” The angel appears to Mary as though out of the blue, suddenly and unexpected. Some icons show the angel coming to her like a blast of wind, as though running toward her—a very dynamic approach. In other icons, the visitation is like still life: very quiet, very interior. Perhaps we can relate to this in our own “visitations” by God: a time of an overwhelming sense of God’s Presence; at other times, so subtle that it can go unheeded unless we are in an inner space of silence.
Most icons of the Annunciation show Mary at her work: she is spinning wool. She has a spindle in one hand and yarn in the other. In one icon she actually drops the spindle, so shocked and disturbed is she. Mary does what anyone with a healthy spiritual sense of self would do: “What is going on here?”
The angel reassures her: do not be afraid. “Listen.” She is directed to a deeper awareness of this visitation. And then he tells her: You are to bear a son—not just any son, but the Son of the Most High: God’s son.
Mary said to the angel, “But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?” Mary now goes beyond her initial fear. She finds herself questioning. What steadies her? “Be not afraid.” Is it not fear and its many expressions that cripple us in life and hold us back from living in the present and to the full? Mary listens. She hears; she is attuned to the word of God, to the reality of God in her life. She shifts to a different space within herself. She still holds the question, though: “How can this be?” This is a crucial piece of this conversation with the messenger of God. Mary is not passive. God desires and respects our search for meaning and understanding. This is inner work. She experiences tension, and she wrestles with the question: how can this be?
The angel responds: “The Holy Spirit will cover you with its shadow, and the child will be holy and be called Son of God.” This expression indicates that the very power of God will do what humans cannot. According to the oral tradition and in the non-canonical scriptural texts, Mary was raised in the temple and was taught the scriptures. She may well have made the connection with Genesis 1:1-3:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
This Light is not the light of the sun but the Divine Energies of God.
In celebrating this feast today at this morning’s matins, we sang the Exapostilarion, which describes Mary as a glowing sanctuary …a lamp wherein the first light of heaven dwelled. This is the primordial light beyond all light—the mysterious energies of God that created all things.
Now Mary says, “Let what you have said be done to me.” She is ready to open herself to that space deep within. She is receptive to what is totally beyond her reason, to what makes no sense. Then she moves to a space of total trust in God, a place where she is open, ready to receive, and the Spirit enables her to utter: “Be it done to me according to your word.” Mary responds to the invitation to be creative, to bring forth, and to empower life.
That invitation is extended to all of us: the invitation to be contemplatives—to go into that silent space deep within, to be attentive to the Word of God, to be awake and aware of God’s plan in our lives and share that experience with others. We are called to find God in everything, moment to moment: in pain, in joy, doubt, despair, hope, and love. That invitation calls for silence beyond our little egos, for us to be of a receptive mind and heart so that by God’s outpouring of grace we may receive an insight, a sense of direction; and from that humble, empty place we may be filled with a life-giving word, gesture, action that reveals God’s presence in this world of ours.
We are all called to be contemplatives, beckoned to becoming attentive to God’s Presence in our life, and to a journey of self-discovery: God discovery. “Know thyself and you will know God.”
Meister Eckhart says:
“We are human beings with seeds of the divine within us.” A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.” and then “Know thyself and you will know God.” You will experience God and this experience will be as a seed called to produce fruit.
In these uncertain times, perhaps this prayer of Thomas Merton may help us to be open and to recognize the unpredictable beckonings of God in our own lives:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
