That generous word... "Be it done" ...

"In Jesus, God has placed, in the midst of barren, despairing mankind, 
a new beginning which is not a product of human history 
but a gift from above." - Pope Benedict XVI

The ANNUNCIATION of the LORD

Solemnity*

*Whenever the Solemnity occurs during Holy Week,
it is transferred to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter.

 "The Virgin Mary uttered that generous word, "Be it done" 

... Immediately the Heart of Jesus, ever to be adored, 

has begun to pulsate with love, divine and human."

Pius XII, On Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 63

"The Wisdom of God creates poets. How evidently this is so can be seen by considering Mary of Nazareth. When she had given to the Lord of Hosts the Flesh that would become our Bread, Wisdom caused her to break into a poem of praise, a song repeated by more people than probably any other ever composed. The Presence within stirred her to exult and proclaim the One 'who has filled the hungry with good things'. And the praise owed to the Presence of embodied Wisdom among us has never ceased in the Church from that day until this."

James T. O'Connor

The Hidden Manna

“When the Divine Child was conceived, Mary’s humanity gave Him hands and feet, eyes and ears, and a body with which to suffer. Just as the petals of a rose after a dew close on the dew as if to absorb its energies, so too Mary as the Mystical Rose closed upon Him Whom the Old Testament had described as a dew descending upon the earth. When finally she did give Him birth, it was as if a great ciborium had opened, and she was holding in her fingers the Guest Who was also the Host of the world, as if to say, ‘Look, this is the Lamb of God; look, this is He Who takes away the sins of the world.’”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Life of Christ

Top Image: Annunciation - Titian (1535)
Bottom Image: Mystical Rose - Sr Marie Pierre Semlar, M.M.

More on the ANNUNCIATION,
incl liturgical readings, history and family activities

http://www.wf-f.org/Annunciation.html

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, 

that we may be made worthy of the promises of  Christ!