Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 April 2024)

By a marvellous and mysterious disposition of Divine Providence, Catherine-Mectilde de Bar received permission to make the first solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in her Institute on Annunciation Day, 25 March 1653. It was no mere coincidence: there was the finger of God. By another provision of God's liturgical providence, today is the transferred feast of the Annunciation, which, this year, as you may recall, fell on the Monday of Holy Week. The first solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, which marked the birth of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration on 25 March 1653, was more than a mere historical event; it belongs rather to those mysterious events that contain within themselves the seed and grace of all future development. The first solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament could have taken place on any other day. There is no shortage of feasts in the liturgical year that would have been suitable but, of all of them, God chose this one: the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Incarnation of the Word.

Virgo Audiens

In sacred art, the Virgin of the Annunciation, the Virgo Audiens, is depicted either seated, with the book of prophets or psalms open in her lap, or with a spindle in her hand, intent on weaving a scarlet cloth of great beauty. Both representations are symbolic. In the first one we see the Virgin Mary reading the Word of God. She listens to the Word of God, repeats it and, repeating it, takes it into herself; she allows the Word addressed to her to become in the sanctuary of her heart the Word that she addresses to God; and then, by the action of the Holy Spirit, she gives herself so much to the Word, that the heart of the Word begins its eternal rhythm under her heart, pulsating in her virginal womb as the heart of the Host pulses on the white linen of the corporal in the Holy Sacrifice.

Robes for the High Priest

In the second image, we see the Virgin Mary weaving; in her immaculate hands, all the threads of Israel's history, and her own, enter into the fulfilment of God's perfect design. Mary of Nazareth is not weaving a veil of wool, silk and linen to be used in the temple in Jerusalem; she is weaving the most sacred liturgical robe of all - a human body - for the Eternal High Priest who is about to offer himself as a pure victim, a holy victim, an immaculate victim in the sanctuary of her womb.

In the Holy of Holies

It is precisely at this moment - however one wishes to understand it - that the Archangel makes his entrance. He enters, he speaks, he receives from the Virgin's lips the long-awaited response only to make possible another entrance: the solemn one of Christ in space and time; the arrival of the High Priest, the Lamb of Sacrifice, the Victim prepared from the beginning of the world (Revelation 13:8).

Mary of Nazareth, despite her young age, was perfectly prepared for this moment. She felt a tremor in her womb, the blazing of a fire, the movement, as it were, of priestly footsteps hurrying up the altar. Awash with the Holy Spirit, she realised in an instant of glowing light that her body had become a temple more spacious than the temple in Jerusalem, that her womb had become an altar and her heart the Holy of Holies.

He recalled David's mystical utterance in Psalm 39 and, with astonishment, heard it repeated within himself by a voice that, though not his own, was perfectly in tune with his own.

The sacrifice and the offering thou seekest not, but thou hast formed mine ears [to hear thy commandments]. The burnt offering and the [victim] for sin thou askest not, and I said [then]: "Behold, I come [and I put myself at thy command]. In the volume of the Book are [thy] prescriptions for me: to do thy will, my God, I will, and [let] thy Law [be] in the midst of my heart.

(Psalm 39:7-9)

"My body," he whispered, "has become a temple; my womb has become an altar. My Fiat has opened the heavens. The Holy Spirit has taken possession of the flesh of my flesh and the blood of my blood, that God may finally find on earth the only priest and the only victim worthy of himself.

Thou hast endowed me with a body

St Luke, of course, does not tell any of this explicitly in his account of the Annunciation. He writes of the Angel Gabriel sent by God, the Virgin named Mary, betrothed to Joseph, and the dialogue on which the salvation of the world depended. He writes of the shadow of the Holy Spirit, of the sign of the old Elizabeth found pregnant and already in her sixth month, and of an even greater and more wonderful sign, for to God nothing is impossible.

St Luke gives us the Virgin's reply: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38), and then, telling us of the Angel's swift return to heaven, covers everything else with a veil of silence. To understand the mystery in its fullness, we are forced to go to the Letter to the Hebrews.

That is why, on entering the world, [Christ says]: "Thou didst not want sacrifice or offering, but hast prepared me a body; holocaust even for sin thou didst not please: then said I, - Behold I come - (for I am spoken of in the scroll of the book) - to do thy will, O God. (Hebrews 10:5-7)

The beginning of the solemn entrance procession

The Annunciation is the great and solemn feast of the Son of God the Victim. It is the beginning of the solemn entrance procession of the Eternal High Priest. It sets in motion the immense movement back to the Father with which the Word, having married our humanity, prepares to ascend the altar where he will be immolated.

Today Mary welcomes into the sanctuary of her womb and onto the altar of her heart the only necessary Victim, the only Victim worthy of God, the Victim whose coming the world has longed for, the prophets have proclaimed, the psalmists have sung, and the children of Israel have awaited with hope.

After saying above: 'You did not want either sacrifices or offerings or holocausts for sin, nor did you like the things that are offered according to the law', he adds: 'Behold I come, O God, to do your will'. Thus it takes away the first (sacrifice) to establish the second. And it is by virtue of this will that we have been sanctified through the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ, (made) once (for ever). (Hebrews 10, 8-10)

A charisma comes to light

This is the mystery of the Annunciation in all its mystical fulfilment.

The Annunciation cannot be celebrated, nor meditated upon, nor understood, in isolation from this, the Great Entrance of Christ the Victim, the beginning of the one Holy Sacrifice exposed in the Upper Room, consummated on Calvary, offered unceasingly in the sanctuary of heaven, and perpetuated until the end of time on earth in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

That is why God's Providence ordained that the Benedictines devoted to perpetual adoration should come out of the shadows for the first time and become radiant in the light of the Holy Host on the feast of the Annunciation.

Be ready

Receive the Divine Victim in yourselves today, as the Virgin of Nazareth received Him in herself.

Let Him find in you a sanctuary for the offering of His Sacrifice, an altar for His immolation and an adoring silence worthy of His divine liturgy.

Even more, let him find you ready for his immolation, not as spectators watching in awe, but as souls completely surrendered to the shadow of the Holy Spirit. One cannot receive the flesh and blood of the Lamb immolated from before the foundation of the world without becoming a victim soul with Him.

Lord Jesus Christ,

Divine Victim hidden in the sanctuary of Mary's womb

and immolated on the altar of His heart,

Unite us to Thee:

our bodies to Thy Body,

our blood to Thy Blood,

our souls to Thy Soul

our hearts to Thy Heart,

to make us with Thee

one Priest and one Victim

an offering to the glory of the Father,

for love of Thy Bride, the Church,

and in reparation for the sins by which Thy Sacrifice is despised,

Thy dishonoured presence

and the splendour of Thy glory is dimmed

in the sight of men

who, even without knowing it

desire to contemplate the beauty of Thy Face. Amen.

+ Giovanni D’Ercole