Friday, March 24, 2017

Annunciation of the Lord, Saturday, 25-03-17

Isaiah 7:10-14; 8:10 / Hebrews 10:4-10 / Luke 1:26-38

Today's feast of the Annunciation is an important event in the Church because nine months later, the Church will be celebrating the feast of Christmas, the birth of Jesus.

The feast of the Annunciation invites to enter, with Mary, into a quiet contemplation of the promise of salvation, which was first pronounced by the prophet Isaiah, and which was later accepted by Mary and fulfilled and manifested in Jesus.

But for now, we are invited to be with Mary, to hear her say "Yes" to the Lord and to the acceptance of the promise of salvation.

In other words, like Mary, we also need to let Jesus grow within us, we let Jesus become "greater" in our hearts, as we become lesser and lesser of ourselves.

The feast of the Annunciation reminds us that we are sinful and we need to be saved from the clutches of the evil one and we need Jesus to come into our hearts and to be made flesh in our lives in order to be saved.

And that is the meaning of the celebration of the feast of the Annunciation.

Like Mary, we say "Yes" to salvation and we say "Yes" to Jesus.

When we truly mean what we say, then Jesus will be able to enter into our hearts and be the center our lives.

Yes, we must continue to be faithful to the "Yes" to Jesus.

One of the ways we can do this is to have a deep devotion to Mary, either with the Rosary or some other form of Marian devotion.

With Mary, we say to the Lord: I am the servant of the Lord, let what you have said be done unto me.