Week three: Getting to know Jesus Christ - Day 1
The Annunciation. Jesus, The Word of God. Jesus, The Gospel
Prayer to the Holy Spirit
O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of getting to know Jesus Christ, encountering Him in the mystery of the Annunciation, and discovering that the Lord is in every word that comes from the mouth of God. Amen!
The Word of God
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.’But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her” (Lk 1:26‒38).
Meditation
Let’s enter the house of a young Israeli girl in Nazareth. Her name is Miriam. She is a wife of Joseph. She bustles around her usual jobs. She takes care of the house. Let’s stay with Mary in the mystery of everyday life. Let’s see what she does and how she behaves…
Suddenly, there comes God’s herald from heaven! Miriam hears: “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you! Blessed are you.” She was waiting for the Word of God, and she succeeded. The angel announces the birth of the Son of God. Miriam is agitated. She feels anxiety, which is a fruit of humiliation and reverence towards the majesty of the Creator. The heart of Mary trembles… The wife of Joseph senses that the news brought by Gabriel mean something completely new… I’m convinced that Miriam doesn’t understand everything. She listens in silence and starts meditating on the Word of God. In the heart of this young Israeli girl grows a profound prayer. Gabriel calms her: “Do not be afraid, Mary” (Lk 1:30). And he starts explaining God’s plan: “You have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (Lk 1:30). Let’s ask Mary so that she introduces us into this experience…
Mary, as a Jew, perfectly knows the commandment binding every member of the Chosen People: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Deu 6:4). So, the first is: HEAR! In the prologue of the Gospel of Saint John, we read: “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn 1:1). Therefore, the Word of God is in the beginning of everything. It is before everything, first of all, and most of all. The evangelist writes: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (Jn 1:3). All God’s work (miracles) in our life begins with the Word and happens thanks to the Word which has the power of creation, agency, efficiency, and holds within the power of God. We have to remember that John’s prologue is the hymn about the Word that is the only one. The author of the fourth gospel writes about the Word of God—Jesus Christ. In the Book of Revelation, we hear that Jesus’ name is the Word of God: “his name is called The Word of God” (Rev 19:13). So it is wrong to ask: what is the Bible (Scripture)? The Bible is somebody! It is the eternal Word of God!
Mary receives God’s message. She hears four Words (sentences): (1) “Greetings, (2) favored one! (3) The Lord is with you. (4) Blessed are you!” These are Words—names of Jesus. Miriam starts wondering what the coming of an angel means and what the Creator wants to tell her. Let’s ponder over the meaning of God’s words together with Mary.
Greetings! (Hail Mary) God greets Mary. He sends her a message: “I see you! I know that you are! I know your life!” In Hebrew, the greeting is expressed by the word shalom (peace). It means God gives Mary peace. The Word of God (Jesus) is the warranty of the peace of spirit. In a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, Isaiah writes that there will come the “Prince of Peace” (cf. Isa 9:6)! Also St. Paul calls Jesus the Peace (cf. Eph 2:14). In Greek, we have the word chaire which means “rejoice.” In Latin, this angelic salutation is expressed as Ave Maria! Astoundingly, “Ave” spelt in reverse is “Eva” (Latin for Eve). It is as if Gabriel wanted to tell Mary: “You are going to be the new Eve! The first was disobedient, but you are going to always be faithful to God!”
Favoured one! (Full of grace) St. Luke uses here the Greek word kecharitomene that grammatically is the present perfect passive participle of the verb denoting being a wonderful gift of God’s Grace and supernatural beauty (the Greek word charis means God’s grace, goodness, kindness, but also beauty, gracefulness, charm). Thus, the author expresses the truth that God favoured Mary, and she is full of His Grace. This way he describes the spiritual magnificence of Miriam of Nazareth and the purity (clarity, transparency) of the Immaculate Heart, which are the characteristics of the internal world of the Mother of Jesus. These properties became Mary’s treasure for her entire life! We probably have here a biblical foundation for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When I hear “full of grace,” I see Mary as the most beautiful God’s masterpiece—the Woman without a trace of evil, shadow, or flaw, clothed in God’s goodness, woven of Love. Mary is a vessel entirely filled with God. The fullness of grace is a wonderful gift that God gave Miriam on account of the privilege of Divine motherhood. All in God… All for God… Consecrating to God and confessing: “I belong to You! I am all for You! All Yours (Tota Tua)!” And thus, in the womb of a virgin, a wife of Joseph, there begins the life of Jesus-Man. Full of grace means full of Jesus, full of His presence (love).
The Lord is with you! That’s the name of Jesus mentioned in the Scripture. In the Book of Isaiah, we read the prophecy about the coming of the Messiah: “The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel” (Isa 7:14). St. Matthew will add the translation: “which means ‘God is with us’” (Matt 1:23). Mary hears that God will always be close to her. She believes that staying with God (in God’s world) will never stop. She doesn’t know what will happen, but she keeps to the Word of God—the promise that God will always be infinitely close. St. Augustin wrote in his Confessions: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new (…) You were with me, and I was not with you.” In Latin, it is Deus interior intimo meo, which can be translated as “God is nearer to me than my innermost being.” It’s remarkable that God is always and forever with us! Although we turn our backs on our Maker, exclude ourselves from God’s world and leave the space of Life, God—in his Son, Jesus Christ—never turns back on us, never leaves us and never will, and never ceases to love us. Mary hears it: “Immanuel… the Son of God. God who was, who is and who always will be with me!”
Blessed are you! Benedicta means greeted, endowed with a good Word by God. Therefore, Father God has the best greeting for the Mother of His Son. And Jesus is the source of blessing for Mary. In the Old Testament, Abram heard from God: “I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. (…) in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:2‒3). This sentence (prophecy) in the New Testament refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary! Wherever Mary appears, there spreads God’s blessing! In Ain Karem, during the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, she will hear from her relative: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Lk 1:42), and in the song of praise, Magnificat she will say (sing): “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48).
Let’s stay for a moment again by the Words that resonate in the heart of Miriam of Nazareth. Don’t do it just to learn these divine sentences by heart—after all, we know the Angelic salutation pretty well, and the prayer of the rosary is close to our hearts. What’s important here is that we get into the very centre of the Gospel Mary hears at the Annunciation. We still need to get into the depth of God’s Words to discover that Miriam, already in Nazareth, meets the Word of God in which is Jesus and which is Jesus!
Greetings! (Hail Mary) Jesus, who is the Peace, will make Mary experience the inner peace. When she will hear: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Lk 1:35), she will cling to God’s promise and for her entire life she will live in God’s shadow—under loving God’s eye and the Lord’s almighty hand—in the space of proximity and powerful of God’s Grace. Divine messenger will add in the end: “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37). My spiritual intuition says that this sentence will resonate in the heart of Miriam of Nazareth for the rest of her life. It will be the subject of everyday meditation, the leitmotif of all her decisions, the divine music for each day of her life. She will also recall this sentence at the Calvary while standing at the feet of the cross and looking at Jesus dying…
Favoured one! (Full of grace) The experience of close contact with Jesus will be for Mary a source of full life, the greatest treasure and happiness…
The Lord is with you! Although Jesus will leave the family house in Nazareth, He will still be close to His Mother. Therefore, He will not leave Mary.
Blessed are you! Jesus’ blessing will outline Mary’s way of life. It will become the base for Mary’s intercession—a help for the Church who, since the beginning, saw in Mother of Jesus not only an excellent example of life perfectly united with God but also a splendid mediatrix with God.
Mary agrees. She doesn’t dally. She believes that God’s purpose is the best prospect. She confesses that she will follow God’s path. She entrusts herself to the Creator. We hear: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). It’s remarkable that in the Greek text, there is no pronoun “I” (!). The word doule, translated as the servant, the handmaid, may also mean “a female slave.” So, Mary replies to the Angel: “Behold the slave of the Lord! May it happen to me according to what God wants!” She says it with great humility and power. I hear here a great enthusiasm! Let’s listen intently to Mary’s joyful “yes.” Ask the Mother of God for the courage to accept God’s Words and for a gift of total trust and consecration to God!
In the time of Annunciation, there begins the mystery of the Incarnation. The young wife from Nazareth hears the Word of God, and she obeys God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God becomes flesh and starts living among us (cf. Jn 1:14). God is in every Word.
Spiritual reading
“There are several interior practices of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Here are the principal of them stated compendiously. (1) To honour her as the worthy Mother of God (…) to esteem her and honour her above all the other Saints, as the masterpiece of grace, and the first after Jesus Christ, true God and true Man; (2) to meditate her virtues, her privileges, and her actions; (3) to contemplate her grandeurs; (4) to make to her acts of love, of praise, of gratitude; (5) to invoke her cordially; (6) to offer ourselves to her, and unite ourselves with her; (7) to do all our actions with the view of pleasing her; (8) to begin, to continue, and to finish all our actions by her, in her, and with her, in order that we may do them by Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ our Last End.”
St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 115
Homework
I will attentively read the description of the Annunciation and think about how I reply to the Word of God.
Prayer of consecration
I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!