Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 20 December 2020

Fourth Sunday in Advent

"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". (Lk 1:28)

We know who said these words without thinking, they are so familiar to any of us brought up in any Christian tradition, but especially those of us who were part of Church schools, for, like many, as a child I remember these words in our annual nativity play better perhaps, than I remembered them at Mass. They act as a refrain during this last part of Advent as we gather up energy for the Christmas festivals, no doubt with the words music of that lovely carol, "The Angel Gabriel to Mary came…" hanging in the air.

The Annunciation is a magical tale, it still has the power to entrance us, stimulating our imaginations. Here is the young Mary in Nazareth, there is the Angel Gabriel sent by God, between them the words of the Most High, a dialogue mind bending in its seeming impossibility, Mary shall bear God's son by the power of the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth her barren cousin, and well past conceiving, will also have a son, for Mary and Elizabeth, fear and mystery are in the air! Colouring the wider picture is a slightly happy ending, for the two boys are born, heralded by more magic and mystery, an angelic visitation, the mute Zechariah naming John, the chorus of angels, shepherds and wise Magi coming to Jesus. But years later both are martyred, John by the sword, Jesus by the Cross, sorrow is there, hidden in the fear Mary senses even as she accepts the will of the Most High.

Of course from our faith angle, the long view tells the sequel, death leads to resurrection and hope of a great second coming, with redemption and salvation offered to all, a new Covenant never to be broken between the Creator of all and creation in its fullness. Of the later Mary, we find the story petered out, we know little of her old age, of how she felt, how she remembered and commemorated these events of her son (and nephew's) childhood in which she played the most important role. Was she, like so many of us in the autumn of our years, looking back to look forward in hope of another final encounter?

Can we grapple with the event, make it part of our understanding? Does it always have to be a tale just outside the parameters of normal life? For me the answer is a definite 'no!'. The Annunciation is something we enter into through our own experiences, those heightened encounters, often seen as such in retrospect, where love connects and changes us.

The first reading of this Sunday from 2 Samuel helps me grasp part of what is going on, how you ask? Well I picked up on that question of whether God needs a dwelling here on earth, which King David and Nathan discuss. In the convoluted answer of `God to them, there is a real pointer towards something we humans need to grasp, that God does not need any earthly dwellings because the Divine Presence is everywhere we are, and in Jesus has pitched up a tent in human form, but who also, through the Spirit, will, as happened to Mary, overshadow us and dwell in our deepest selves. We too have the Christ-God-within-us, we too like Mary become living temples of God. So, let us go back to the Annunciation.

Can you make Mary's story your own? Partly! We need desperately to rescue the Mother of Jesus from where well meaning people have taken her, hijacking her image to make it something she is not. We cannot let her become some otherworldly saint, for if anything she is the most real of any saint we have. She knew rawness, fear, she was deeply troubled, and questioned God's ways. Mary was a thinker, 'pondering on these things' as Luke puts it, no passive cipher but an active participant in God's ways. In life she was there-in action, pointing out the practicalities of ministry and mission, seeing the bigger picture-such as the wedding at Cana in Galilee, loyal in the face of adversity, standing with her son at his ending, a woman on the edge of death for the scandal she caused her betrothed, somebody who knew poverty, the victim of gossip and slander. We have made her into an anodyne image, yet the Annunciation shatters that by dumping her into the soap opera of the nativity as a strong fighting lead character, who after struggle and no doubt intense debate, gave her message to the messenger as we too do, that knowing and loving God means we will let the Spirit into our emptiness, to be filled with love, and in so doing work for the Kingdom in trust and hope. Nothing is ever impossible to God and in Mary's opening of the door of her heart and soul, we find that impossibility becoming real, as one of us, she is for us! Hail Mary, full of grace, Temple of the Spirit as we are, pray for us sinners now, and at that hour of our own ending, amen.

Annunciation

Poem by John Donne

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo! faithful Virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He'll wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;

Whom thou conceivest, conceived; yea, thou art now

Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother,

Thou hast light in dark, and shutt'st in little room

Immensity, cloister'd in thy dear womb.

Excerpt from a homily on the Annunciation

By St John Chrysostom

The Angel [Gabriel], having heard what was spoken to him, said: "Strange is this thing, surpassing every thought to speak. He Who is awesome to the Cherubim, and invisible to the Seraphim, He Who is incomprehensible to all the Angelic Powers, is proclaimed to become nature!"

...But having truly all of this, the Physician has come to the sick, and the Sun of Righteousness has dawned for those who sat in darkness, the Anchor and Calm Harbour to those storm-tossed, the Intercessor has been born for the despised slaves, and peace has been united, and the Redeemer of captives has come, the strong unspeakable Joy and Love and Protection has come for those who are embattled. He is our peace, as the divine Apostle says, through Whom we have all received grace, Christ our God, to Whom belong glory to the ages of ages. Amen.