“Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
This greeting was something entirely new, something which Ambrose said was a "new form of blessing, unheard of before, reserved for Mary alone." Origen added that "if Mary had known that similar words had been addressed to others, such a salutation would never have appeared to her so strange and alarming." Gregory of Nyssa contrasted the greeting to Mary with the words spoken condemning Eve after her transgression in the garden, writing that in Eve's case, "the cause of sin was punished by the pains of childbirth", but that in Mary's, "through gladness, sorrow is driven away. Hence the angel not unaptly proclaims joy to the Virgin, saying, Hail."
Yet there was something like this greeting to be found in the Scriptures though the context prevented Mary for immediately recognizing herself in the passage.
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
...
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst;
you shall never again fear evil (see Zephaniah 3:14-3:15)
Mary too was told to rejoice because the Lord was with her. But though she doubtlessly knew the Scriptures she did not recognize herself as this figure, "daughter Zion", and in her humility she could not immediately do so. For all of these reasons "she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be."
Then the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Mary had been made for this, created full of grace to be fitting mother for the Son of the Most High. Yet it was precisely this grace that prevented her from rushing forward and jumping to conclusions about what was to be her privileged role in salvation history. That said, she was different from Ahaz, who refused to ask for a sign when the Lord had something to reveal. The Virgin, by contrast, did not reject the offer of the sign that was too much for Ahaz to handle.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us!”
Yet she did not immediately see herself in that prophecy either. She was told that she herself would have a son, but did not jump to any conclusions.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
By now she recognized that she was to have a special role in bringing the Messiah into the world, that she was, in some special and particular sense, the daughter of Zion. But again, she waited for Gabriel to make explicit what was perhaps too fearful and awesome for she herself to guess.
But Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?”
Mary never imagined that she herself would be that virgin described by Isaiah. But, nevertheless, she was committed to a life of virginity, since she had no relations with a man, and apparently no plans to do so in the future. But since she could not imagine any other way for words of Gabriel to be fulfilled aside from this prophecy she asked for clarity and waited on Gabriel to reveal it to her.
And the angel said to her in reply,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
The Holy Spirit would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her in the way that it once did over the tabernacle in the Holy of Holies, but did so no longer. The child conceived because of this presence of her would be holy, the Son of God, unlike any child born before or since. The temptation for Mary, if there could have been one, would have been to desire to recuse herself as too insignificant for God to work through her. It would be easy for her to acknowledge this plan of God in another. But to agree to be a part of it herself required the freedom of the grace in which she was created. We, like Ahaz, would have been tempted to reject the sign we were offered. The worst of us would have rejected it from fear of condemnation from such close proximity to God. But the best of us would still not have had the trust that God could do this thing he proposed in us, though surely he could do it in another. But Mary did not doubt that God's power could even work with her, though she was a humble handmaid.
Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
By agreeing with God's plan for her Mary opened the way for Christ to come into the world. The body prepared for him was given to him by her assent. Already in here at his conception the law was superseded by grace, freedom preparing the way for the freedom by which Christ himself would come to do the will of the Father. It was by "this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all."
Mary, thank you for your yes! Teach us to make our yes to the Father, Son, and Spirit in you!
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