Today is the Feast of the Annunciation and we lament our inability to gather together to worship in anything but the very smallest of gatherings.

Later today I will celebrate Holy Communion here, with a very small group of fellow worshippers. We will sing, pray, and give thanks to God for the Incarnation, which is the beginning of God's re-creative and redemptive work in the sending of the Messiah. Falling in the season of Lent, as is so often the case, the descent of the eternal Son to become a human cannot be understood apart from the Cross. Jesus came to redeem us, and to redeem us he would lay down his life for us. During the days of this pestilence we cannot but be reminded of our mortality and the frailty of our lives - but let us never think of such realities without also thinking of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, for our sakes.

Today, exactly 9 months prior to Christmas Day, we read Isaiah 7:10-15 and St. Luke 1:26-38 and marvel both at God’s power to accomplish so great a miracle as the Incarnation as well as the faith and humility of the Virgin Mary whose willingness to trust and obey God continues to be an example to which we must each aspire today.

On the previous page you will see one of my favorite icons, in which we see Jesus within the womb of the Virgin Mary. It doesn’t exactly look like a sonogram and it isn’t meant to. Mary raises her hands in the posture of prayer and worship. The Lord Jesus, fully God and fully man, has his hands lifted in blessing and His thumb grasps the “ring finger” of each hand, making the ancient sign of the Holy Trinity. He who is in Mary’s womb is the Ancient of Days, the one through whom and for whom and in whom all the cosmos were created. There are stars surrounding Him, symbolizing the fact that the Lord of the Heavens is for a time confined not only in the flesh of the creation but also within the womb of one of his creatures.

The Blessed Virgin Mary carried God around within her in a unique and unrepeatable way. But each of us who have been baptized into Christ and who hold the faith of Mary and all the Saints also carry Christ within us. He is present in His people by means of His Holy Spirit. We do well to remember our calling to be the light of the world by means of manifesting the presence of Christ, the true Light of the World, to others in both word and deed.

Enjoy this feast day, this little oasis in the midst of the Great Fast of Lent, and give thanks for the faith of the Blessed Virgin Mary and pray for the grace to faithfully manifest Christ to the world.

The Collect for today: Lord God, pour your grace into our hearts, we pray, that as we have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

JSSP+