Today the church celebrates the Annunciation, commemorating when the Virgin Mary consented to become the Mother of God. It is a date of significance:...
Among the various characterizations of Mary, I find myself repeatedly drawn to Mary as the Second Eve in parallel to St. Paul’s reference to Christ as the Second Adam (Rom 5:12, 15; I Cor 15:45, 47).
All the sacraments are traumatic for us. Our body is no longer completely our own, our present is interrupted by a foretaste of the eschatological banquet, and the sacraments ultimately are beyond any adequate verbal description.
The blessed Virgin received the rays of “the sun” when she conceived the Lord. That is, the divinity of our Redeemer cloaked itself with the covering of human nature as with a shade, and by this means a virgin’s womb was able to bear him.