Given the particular shape of our Lenten journey—an ashy season of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer—it perhaps seems odd to be focusing on the Incarnation—on God taking on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary—but that’s exactly what the Feast of the Annunciation bids us do.  

It is in the Incarnation that the first fruits of the Fall are reclaimed, that Adam’s sin is recovered, and God’s will is restored. It is the Incarnation which unites all of humanity—the good, the bad, and the otherwise—into one sacred human family. 

God promises through the Archangel Gabriel that God will take up residence in a particular way in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God expresses God’s desire to take on flesh and blood, bone and muscle, doubt and despair, and the whole range of human emotions and experiences in the womb of a pregnant virgin, a decision which will revolutionize the world and change everything. 

Claiming her own full agency as a human being and as a woman, Mary questions the angel and gains clarity on God’s invitation. Meek and mild images of Mary with folded hands and eyes cast up to heaven are anything but biblical. We are given in the Annunciation an image of a young woman who is able to withstand an angelic encounter and is confident in her own self to question even God’s angel minister; of a young woman who is an advocate of the oppressed, the mother of a renewed humanity, a dwelling place for God’s own presence, the queen of the saints, a friend of God, and a prophet. 

While Mary’s resounding “yes!” enabled God really and truly to be born among humanity—to set up God’s house in a particular way among us—the same invitation is made to each and every single one of us every day: Come and let me be born in you. Come let me take form in you. Come let me grow in you. Come let me become flesh and blood, muscles and tendons, emotions and feelings in you. 

We participate anew in the Annunciation whenever we assume Mary’s posture of risk and vulnerability. Whenever we say “yes!” to God’s invitation, whenever we offer our own bodies in the service of the marginalized, whenever our voices are lifted for justice, whenever we honor the beauty of our own bodies, whenever we recognize the blessedness of all humanity, whenever we ponder God’s word deeply in our hearts. 

This holy season of Lent is a time of penance, a season of stripping away the excessive to make room for the necessary. As we together make our journey toward Holy Week and Easter, the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Gabriel Archangel stand ready to ask us: will you be ready? Will your heart be ready? Will your soul? Will your body? Are you prepared to be a house of flesh for the King of Kings, a temple for the Paraclete?

Their questions echo those found in the baptismal liturgy which is the culmination of the Lenten journey:  Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God? Do renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God? Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God? Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? 

God bless you and keep you as you progress deeper and deeper into the heart of God’s love this Lent.