The Annunciation: further reflections

     There are a couple of readings that I have always enjoyed on the feast of the Annunciation.  The first is an excerpt from a homily of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Office of Readings for December 20), the second comes from a letter of Pope St. Leo the Great and is the second reading for the Office of Readings for this feast.  I placed them in the following order for reason that will become obvious when read.  Enjoy!

     You have heard O virgin, that you will conceive and bear a son; you have heard that it will not be by man but by the Holy Spirit.  The angel awaits an answer; it is time for him to return to God who sent him.  We too are waiting, O Lady, for your word of compassion; the sentence of condemnation weighs heavily upon us.

     The price of our salvation is offered to you.  We shall be set free at once if you consent.  In the eternal Word of God we all came to be, and behold, we die.  In your brief response we are to be remade in order to be recalled to life.

     Tearful Adam with his sorrowing family begs this of you, O loving Virgin, in the exile from Paradise.  Abraham begs it, David begs it.  All the other holy patriarchs, your ancesotrs ask it of you, as they dwell in the country of the shadow of death.  This is what the whole eart waits for, prostrate at your feet.  It is right in doing so, for on your word depends comfort for the the wretched, ransom for the captive, freedom for the condemned, indeed, salvation for all the sons of Adam, the whole of your race.

     Answer quickly, O Virgin.  Reply in haste to the angel, or rather through the angel to the Lord.  Answer with a word, receive the Word of God.  Speak your own word, conceive the divine Word.  Breathe a passing word, embrace the eternal Word.

     Why do you delay, why are you afraid?  Believe, give praise, and receive.  Let humility be bold, let modesty be confident.  This is no time for virginal simplicity to forget prudence.  In this matter alone, O prudent Virgin, do not fear to be presumptuous.  Though modest silence is pleasing, dutiful speech is now more necessary.  Open your heart to faith, O blessed Virgin, your lips to praise, your womb to the Creator.  See, the desired of all nations is at your door, knocking to enter.  If he should pass by because of your delay, in sorrow you would begin to seek him afresh, the One whom your soul loves.  Arise, hasten, open.  Arise in faith, hasten in devotion, open in praise and thanksgiving.  Behold the handmaid of the Lord, she says, be it done to me according to your world.

      Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity.  To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer.  Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

     He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours.  By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

     For in the Savior there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter.  It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

     He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity.  He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men.  Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence.  So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

     Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world.  He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father's glory.  He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

     He was born in a  new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours.  Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp.  Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time.  Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant.  Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering.  Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

     He who is true God is also true man.  There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the preeminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

     As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted.  Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other.  The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.

     One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries.  As the Word does not lose equality with the Father's glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

     One and the same person - this must be said over and over again - is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man.  He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.