Lenten Reflections

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By Erik Bishop ’24

Peace to you and grace from our Lord Jesus Christ, who on this day was made flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God and our mother.

For a while now, we have been focusing on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, since it is customary to either pray the sorrowful mysteries during Sundays of Lent or all of Lent. It is a necessary part of the spiritual life, and I hope that we can integrate that within ourselves during this season of Penance. Today, however, it is ideal to adhere this beautiful personal devotion to the spirit of this first class feast day that observes the memory of the first Joyful Mystery, the Annunciation of our Lord. We remember in the Scriptures and at Mass the day when Saint Gabriel the Archangel visited the Blessed Virgin Mary to tell her that the Holy Spirit would conceive in her the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Collect of the Feast of the Annunciation is incredibly ancient, as it prays for us to be sharers in the divine nature of Christ. The only difference between the collect in the Vetus Ordo form of the Annunciation versus the Novus Ordo form is how it describes the faithful. In the ancient form, it reads “we who confess [the Blessed Virgin Mary] to be truly the mother of God”. In the Collect of today’s feast day in the modern Roman rite, it reads “we who confess our Redeemer [Jesus Christ] to be God and man”. The reason for this change is presumably because in order to correspond with the Eastern Catholic view of the Annunciation, which is that it is a feast day of the Lord rather than a Marian feast day. The feast day is of Eastern Catholic origin, and it does focus mostly on Jesus.

On the other hand, devotion to Mary and reflecting on how she lived her life can be extremely helpful in understanding how to live a holy life focused on Jesus. The entire life of the Blessed Mother was dedicated to God and to raising her divine Son, who was God. That would take a key virtue related to the Annunciation, which is humility, because it was with humility that Mary accepted God’s will that she would bear His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, whose Resurrection we are preparing to eventually celebrate during this season of Lent. She said, “Ecce ancilla domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum,” or “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” She essentially told Saint Gabriel that she is God’s servant, His handmaid. We, too, are called to bear the light and love of Christ in our hearts. In that way, we are called to be His servants. May the season of Lent assist us in becoming better, more humble servants of God, and may this solemn day encourage us in our efforts, so that we may be made partakers of His divine nature.

Happy feast day!