Annunciation - Solemnity 2011
Community Chapter - Sermon by Fr. Mark
In the early sixties, on a visit to Nunraw, Dom Jean Leclercq remarked that monks make bad librarians. That was because, he said, their minds were attuned to seeing the connections that any subject had with many others. So, for example, a number of books by Newman may be classified variously under the title Scripture, Theology, Patrology, Pastoral, Spirituality, and so on, depending on how you care to think about it. It is good to be able see all the possible connections but that can give headaches to a professional librarian.
When we come to celebrate the major feasts and solemnities of the liturgy, it is helpful to try and see the connections and to avoid the ‘Classification’ instinct. Today’s Solemnity of the ‘Annunciation of the Lord’ is a case in point. Many of us have been used to think of today’s celebration as a feast of our Lady. It is of course! But it is also about our Lord.
The whole purpose of the Annunciation is to tell of the imminent coming of the Lord in the flesh. So the feast is of our Lady but it is much more about the Christ, about the One who was to come and save his people. Mary appears in the foreground of the play; Jesus, her son, waits in the wings. Jean Leclercq’s monk would want to go further and to include those of us who are watching the play and who want to see what it means for us.
The angel Gabriel and our Lady have the main speaking parts. We move closer to them to learn what they have to tell us about our Lord and Saviour. What each says to the other tells us much about the graciousness of God who is now fulfilling what has been only hinted at from the beginning of time. Mary’s response as the story of God’s message unfolds and her acceptance of her part in the process is also our learning process. We learn from her how to be open to God as he reveals himself to us.
Each of our vocations is a kind of parallel image of Mary’s at the moment the annunciation was made by the angel Gabriel. What she did then, because it was a heartfelt response and an acceptance of God into her life, has become a kind of template of what our lives should be. No one of course can have an identical life to any other person, but we can see how she left herself open to God’s word. We can learn how she quietly and undramatically followed that Word. She lived on earth before her son was born in the fullness of time. But it was she who followed after him as the first disciple. We who come later in time, after both mother and divine Son, can enter into that mystery, learn from it and renew our appreciation of what we have been given.
It is obvious from the story of the Annunciation that Mary had in her earlier years been well coached in the life of the Spirit. She would hardly have been so prompt in accepting this revelation and its consequences if she had not been. That inner sensitivity could only have helped her deal with the awkward position in which she found herself when she became pregnant of the Holy Spirit. Just imagine what interior anguish she must have felt about Joseph’s reactions to her condition. How was she going to tell him about her vision of the angel? Would he believe her? Would he happily go along with a situation he did not himself fully understand? Would he now feel unwanted as a father and a husband? All, or some, of these feelings must have passed through his mind. Both he and Mary were human like us. But they did not rush into major decisions when caught up in these uncertainties. Such precipitous actions can alter lives sometimes with long-lasting effects. So, these two important figures in Jesus’ life show us that, even in extraordinary events as these, we can learn to live quietly through what we cannot easily understand at first. In God’s hands, our problems will be resolved and our lives strengthened, given time.
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