Fra Angelico, “Annunciation” (one of many he did! More of them are below.)
Hail, Mary!
The Annunciation is a solemnity on the Church calendar—meaning that it’s treated like a Sunday. During Lent, when it usually falls, you can relax your penances because it’s a day that we are meant to REJOICE.
A few years ago the Annunciation fell on Good Friday and it was transferred to my birthday, which was pretty cool. The Church wants us to celebrate with her, so the feast was moved so that we could celebrate it.
Botticelli, “Annunciation”
There’s a lot of baggage associated with the word “handmaid” these days. But let’s remember that it’s Biblical—in the Annunciation account, Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord"! And that’s what we’re all called to be, man or woman—handmaids of God. Let’s follow Mary’s instructions and “Do whatever He tells you.” (John 2:5)
We’re afraid to do whatever God tells us, aren’t we? We don’t think that God really wants our ultimate good. But He does. He wants it so much that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1: 14)
Mary shows us how to do whatever God asks of us—with trust and confidence, a confidence and trust that carries her even to the foot of the cross where she watched her son die. She pondered these things in her heart (Luke 2:19). She might not have always understood, because Mary isn’t God. She’s not omnipotent. But she knew that God’s plan, “crazy” as it might be, lead to her good, and the good of her son.
Here’s a poem about the annunciation that I really like, so I’ll leave you with it:
The Annunciation
Edwin Muir
The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.
The eternal spirits in freedom go
See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other’s face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He’s come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makes
Each feather tremble on his wings.
El Greco, “The Annunciation”
Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way.
Sound’s perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.
Fra Angelico, “The Annunciation”
But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make,
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their gaze would never break.
Leonardo da Vinci, “The Annunciation”, 1472.