Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord‏

It is impossible for me to express the importance of this Feast Day. It should be celebrated throughout all of Christianity, and has indeed been celebrated throughout all the world throughout the ages of the Church. Though, sadly, it is a day that will come and go for many like any other day, just as the day our LORD was crucified passed for many in the world as any other. It will pass as He passed down the "way of suffering" unrecognized by those going about their lives. May we all stop and ponder anew the infinitely knowable mystery of the incarnation and the magnificent obedience of the Mother of our LORD.

Here are just a few quotes to help.

Jean Charlier de Gerson, 13th century theologian, cries out on this mystery:

"What ought every heart to say or think! every religious, every loving and faithful heart? It ought to rejoice exceedingly in this singular comfort, and to salute you with Gabriel, On this day is the Saviour of mankind, true God and man, conceived in the womb of Mary. This day our Lady received a name more sublime than can be understood, and the most noble of all names possible after that of her Son, by which she is called the Mother of God. On this day the greatest of miracles is wrought. Hear the wonders of love and mercy on this festival: God is made man; and man, in the divine person, God: he that is immortal is become mortal, and the Eternal is born in time. A virgin is a mother a woman the mother of God; a creature has conceived her Creator!"

Michael Card, 20th Century singer and poetic song writer:

When the Father wanted to show the love He wanted us to know,

He sent His only Son, and so became a holy embryo.

Oh, that is the mystery -- more than you can see.

Give up on your pondering, and fall down on your knees.

As fiction as fantastic and wild -- a mother made by her own child!

A hope the babe who cried was God incarnate and man deified.

That is the mystery -- more than you can see.

Give up on your pondering, and fall down on your knees.

Because the Fall did devastate, the Creator now must re-create.

And so, to take our sin, was made like us so we could be like Him.

That is the mystery -- more than you can see.

Give up on your pondering, and fall down on your knees.

St. Leo the Great was born in Tuscany and served as Pope from 440 A.D. until his death in 461. Next to St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo’s pontificate is considered the most significant in early Church history. In 445 he persuaded Emporer Valentinian to issue an edict recognizing the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. He also established the doctrine of the Incarnation first by a letter to Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople, during a battle in the East over monophysitism. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 this same letter was confirmed as true declaration of Catholic Faith concerning the Person of Christ. Secular historians recorded Pope St. Leo’s influence during the barbarian invasions. He met Attila the Hun at the gates of Rome and persuaded him to turn back. He left a great legacy both in his leadership and his writings when he died in 461.

"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 Saviour 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 pre-eminence 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 fulfils 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.