The associated reading for this reflection can be found in your Every Sacred Sunday Mass journal or online here.
One of the most surprising things I find about the Annunciation is the way in which our Blessed Mother reacts to the angel Gabriel’s greeting. She’s “greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Mary wasn’t at all troubled by the fact that an angel was coming to her. She doesn’t even think twice about whether or not she was hallucinating. She’s not at all put off by this supernatural event nor does she make the supernatural into a spectacle for “mystical entertainment.” Instead, her heart and mind cleave immediately to the word God wanted to speak to her. It’s the word of the Lord which pulls her into meditation.
And what did she find at these depths?
A simple fact: “Rejoice, Mary, you have been favored by God.”
Mary seemed surprised by this. As if Mary, in all her purity and innocence, had never considered how holy she was. She never obsessed over her own holiness as something to be grasped at. She never turned her holiness into a self-help project, to be carefully calculated, meticulously planned, and anxiously guarded. She doesn’t wonder what she had done to deserve this, or worse, if she really deserved such a grace at all. No—in simplicity of heart she receives it all as a gift.
Our mother also seemed to intuit that such blessings came with a great responsibility, and this is perhaps what troubled her. The message of Gabriel was the revelation of her vocation: to become the mother of God. Who wouldn’t grow timid in hearing such a lofty call? And yet it was this trouble she felt that pointed out God’s will for her life. And so it is for us. Where God’s word “troubles” us is usually where He is calling us to go.
Mary doesn’t concern herself with too many details. She simply asks for the practical necessities (“How will this be, since I have no relations with a man?") and the rest is her trust that the angel speaks true: “Nothing will be impossible for God.”
“Be it done to me according to thy word.”
And then that was it.
“Then the angel departed from her.”
No opening up of the heavens. No deep ecstasy. Just silence. Peace. Trust.
This is the sound of God’s will being done.
Conrad Espino is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Please pray for him!