On Friday we celebrate the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary. This is one of the twelve great feasts of the Church’s year and usually occurs during Great Lent. It commemorates the message that the Archangel Gabriel brought to the Virgin Mary that she would give birth to the Saviour of the world.
The feast of the Annunciation is both a feast of the Mother of God, and a feast of the Lord. Indeed, it shows the intimate relationship between the Theotokos and her divine Son. For, in her, God’s careful work of preparation reaches its fulfilment. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, He had been preparing the way for the great event of salvation that would reverse the corruption that had entered into the world with Adam and Eve’s disobedience. The Virgin Mary was the grace-filled person whom the generations had been awaiting. She was the one who would give human nature to the Word of God.
But this feast is also the beginning of all of the feasts of the Lord, for it is the beginning of our salvation. The Church’s texts for this feast are full of wonder and amazement at the great mystery of the Incarnation of Christ. Through the obedience of the Mother of God, the uncontainable God, the One who rides upon the Cherubim, comes to dwell in the womb of the Virgin. He takes our nature on Himself in order to redeem us, to heal our brokenness, and to lead us to the Father.
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“Just as all things whatsoever God made He made by the operation of the Holy Spirit, so also it is by the operation of the Spirit that these things are done which surpass nature and cannot be discerned except by faith alone. “How shall this be done to me,” asked the blessed Virgin, “because I know not a man?” The Archangel Gabriel answered, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.” And now you ask how the bread becomes the Body of Christ and the wine and water the Blood of Christ. And I tell you that the Holy Spirit comes down and works these things which are beyond description and understanding.” - Saint John of Damascus