Because March 25 fell on Good Friday this year, the Solemnity of the Annunciation is pushed forward to the first “free” day on the liturgical calendar. This year, that day is April 4.
Traditionally the Solemnity of the Annunciation falls nine months before Christmas, recognizing that the normal gestation period for a human fetus is nine months. Of course, we have no way of knowing the exact date of the Nativity of Our Lord. So these feasts have been arranged on the calendar as symbolic reminders of what God has done for us. In the case of the Nativity, the ancient Fathers of the Church chose a date that coincided with the pagan feast of Saturnalia. The ancient Romans celebrated the winter solstice with great revelry and merry making in the face of the fact that the darkness that characterized the solstice began to recede. No one likes the long, dark days of winter. Christians celebrated a different kind of light. Rather than noting the lengthening day, they recognized that the birth of Jesus brought the great light of God’s love into our world. Because Christmas is placed immediately after the winter solstice, the Solemnity of the Annunciation falls immediately after the vernal (spring) equinox.
On this great feast day, we commemorate the day on which Mary heard the message of the angel announcing that she was destined to become the Mother of God’s Son. This message is so important for Catholic Christians that we have turned the words of the angel into the beginning of the most familiar of prayers asking for the intercession of Mary. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the moment of our death. Amen.”
If we consider what the angel was telling Mary, we have to admit that the consequences would change her life forever. Yet the most important part of the prayer for me lies in the words: “The Lord is with you.” Stop and consider what acknowledging this does in Mary’s life. By accepting the notion that God is with her, she realizes that she can, in fact, do anything because God can do anything. She realizes immediately that if she accepts the message of the angel, she will be handing her life over to God. God’s will becomes her will. Her actions become God’s actions. She no longer accomplishes anything in this life; now God accomplishes great things through her.
I find this prayer and this realization to be a great help as I struggle with my own disability, my own chronic illness. When I was first diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease and realized that one day I might be deaf, the prospect was frightening. However, I was fortunate in that the diagnosis came in December when we hear the Gospel story of the Annunciation at least three times. I began to realize that if I simply acknowledged that God was with me, I could overcome any difficulty that the disease might occasion. With each successive diagnosis (colon cancer, post-polio syndrome, psoriatic arthritis), I simply find myself returning to that Gospel story so that I can hear those words again: “The Lord is with you.”
Alone, I can do nothing. With God, everything is possible.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator