Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons - 24 December 2023

The Annunciation Philadelphia Museum of Art 1899 by Henry Ossawa Tanner

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Just before we enter the great season of the Nativity feasts, it is good that we have this Sunday to pause and reflect a little, not only about what is to come, those wonderful domestic celebrations of light, colour, joyful meetings with our family and friends, but also of the simplicity of the story of Jesus and the incredible trust that the Most High had in entrusting the Word made flesh into our hands. His story did have its dark side, we know that, but we also understand why this is so, to allow the love, light and mercy of God into every corner of life. Yet, there is something very joyful about this honesty of God, it can, if we allow the mystery to soak into us, give us a sense of deep gratitude and joy. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the simple account of the Annunciation, which is todays gospel.

Catholics and Orthodox have a great love of Mary the Mother of Jesus, so do many in the reformed churches, but the long history of devotion to her is a deeply rooted part of what it means to belong to the Church. Instinctively we know that Mary is not God, nor divine, even if sometimes, excessive, exaggerated piety might suggest she is more than simply human. But she is not, and that is the greatest miracle of the Incarnation of Christ. The birth of the Christ Child, named Jesus, has to be through the structures of human life, Mary cannot be anything other than cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Joseph and Mother of Jesus, but with a quality of grace and graciousness we can only hope to emulate!

The coming of Jesus into human life, hangs on a simple sentence that we find in the story of the Annunciation. It is this: '… Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word."' (Lk 1:38) In those few words something extraordinary is taking place., and it can happen to us to! For Mary the encounter with the desire of the Holy One comes through the message of the angel, and encounter that happens in human life, but is often not understood, mainly because we have a rather faulty image of what this messengers of God look like. I prefer to think that they come upon us when we are unaware of their real presence, in Mary's case it is a simple, direct dialogue of need. Can she, would she accept to be the Mother of her Lord? We can read the emotions going through her very easily, Luke's brilliance is in the swift brush stroke of his words painting a complete picture, it's all there, firstly a sketch of place, lineage, and relationship with Joseph, set between the visit of a heavenly messenger, his message, and his departing, giving her hope not only in what she has accepted to do, but that her cousin Elizabeth will also be part of the sign of God's favour. In other words she will not be alone to face what is to come!

Then of course we can sense Mary's confusion and fear, but also her intelligence that takes the risk to examine what this message is about, and unlike so many of us when it comes to matters about God, to interrogate the Angel and the message. I am sure the dialogue was on so many levels, but also much longer and deeper than Luke gives to us. There are the unspoken elements, the looks, the postures between them, the closeness of one with another, but what seems to happen is something is a gift of peace, freeing her form unnecessary fear, this peace that the world cannot give that her son will also give to those who follow him. 'Do not be afraid!' The angel's words to Mary will also echo those of the Lord Jesus to so many, and dare we hope, become a gift to give even now to those who suffer so much from war, cruelty, neglect, poverty, despair, and pain. Through all Luke's story of the Annunciation the humanness of Mary shines like a light. It makes her real, very much one of us, one with us. That is why we ought to look at her from other angles, not only as mother, but as our sister and as our friend, as an intelligent free spirit who takes risks for her love of God. When you next pray the prayer of the angel, 'Hail Mary full of grace' and bless her, remember the second part of this prayer that has been added on by us. It is significant that for many, alongside the Our Father, this is often one of the last prayers we remember in our old age or at that moment before death. It is a message of hope, that she who trusted God, can be trusted by use to help!

'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen'.

May the Christmas feasts bring you ever closer to her and to her son!

Lectio

John Donne (1572-1631)

Annunciation

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 will 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 conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now
Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

The Virgin at Noon
by Paul Claudel

'It is noon. I see the church is open. I must go in.
Mother of our Lord, I have not come to pray.

I have nothing to offer and nothing to ask.

I am here only, my Lady, to look at you.

To look at you, to weep for happiness, to know this
That I am your son and that you are there.

Nothing other than for one moment during which everything stops. Noon!
To be with you, Mary, in this place where you are.

To say nothing, to look at your face.

To let my heart sing in its own language.

To say nothing, but simply to sing because my heart is too full.
Because you are beautiful, because you are immaculate,
The woman in the Grace

The creature in its first honour and in its final blossoming,
As it came out of God in the morning of its original splendour.

Ineffably intact because you are the Mother of Jesus Christ,
Who is the truth in your arms, and the only hope and the only fruit.

Because you are the woman, the Eden of the old forgotten tenderness,
Whose gazes finds the heart suddenly and brings forth the accumulated tears.

Because you have saved me, because you have saved France.
Because she also, like me, for you was that thing you thought about.

Because at that moment when everything cracked, that's when you stepped in you.

Because you saved France once again.

Because it is noon, because we are here in this day today.

Because you are there for always, simply because you are Mary, simply because you exist,

Mother of Jesus Christ, be thanked!