Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you

20 DECEMBER (Lk 1,26-38)

Never might what today happens in the house of Nazareth occur again on our earth. This event is unique, singular, special and unrepeatable. It is not only a human event; above all, it is a divine, supernatural and eternal event, which is carried out and is also realized in time. He who today is embodied has already a perfect life in heaven as most pure God and Son of God. Today he assumes the flesh, is made flesh for our salvation.

God sends the Angel with the particular mission. He must announce the will of God, and also explain it, so that it is carried out without adding anything human. The Virgin Mary cannot be interpreter of the words of the revelation that the Angel makes her. She cannot do like Abraham that receives from God the promise of a son and then he unites with the slave, at the suggestion of his wife, to conceive and give him birth. None of this will happen in her. That is why she needs this Angel who explain her the mystery in every little details. Even the smallest details have to be according to God.

The Virgin Mary is proclaimed full of grace. The Lord is with her to guard, protect, support and guide her. However, not even holiness is enough to understand the mystery to be realized. The explicit, clear word, revealing everything is necessary. We are all far from this vision of faith. The sadness of history and of the Church is this lack of true faith. We think according to ourselves and not according to God.

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “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 called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

Now the Virgin Mary knows what to do: Nothing. She must let herself be entirely made by the Holy Spirit. He is the one that will have to carry out in her womb a work of true creation. He must ensure that the flesh of Mary becomes the flesh of the Son of the Most High. Not a human person must be born from her womb to whom the divine person of the eternal Word of the Father is united. The divine Person clothed with complete true humanity must be born. The Spirit of the Lord in the most pure womb of Mary will have to create this ineffable mystery. This is why Mary must do nothing. Never might this creation be the work or the result of a man and a woman. It is only the fruit of the Holy Spirit to whom the most pure and chaste woman gives all of herself, body, soul and spirit.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us instruments of the Spirit.