Archbishop Viganò: Homily for the Annunciation to Mary Most Holy

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Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò
Ecce ancilla Domini
Homily for the Annunciation to Mary Most Holy

Et verbum caro factum est,
et habitavit in nobis.

Jn 1:14

On the twenty-fifth of March, we celebrate the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and along with it the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity in the womb of the Virgin. The Word became flesh and came to dwell among us: these simple words contain within themselves that ineffable Mystery, thanks to which the Redemption was initiated for us. Many Christian nations, such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany or the Republic of Pisa, Luxembourg, Dauphiné, Savoy, the Kingdom of Navarre, and Hungary calculated the beginning of the civil year not on the first of January, as is the custom today, but on the twenty-fifth of March, in what historians call the “Style of the Incarnation”, which brought the Christian New Year forward to coincide with the spring equinox.

This date therefore marks a historical event, reported in the Holy Gospels, which nine months later would lead the Virgin Mary, traveling with Saint Joseph to Bethlehem for the census ordered by Emperor Caesar Augustus, to find refuge in a stable and give birth to Emmanuel, God with us.

In the National Museum of Capodimonte, in Naples, we can admire a painting by Pietro Novelli (1603-1647), from Palermo, in which the Holy Trinity is depicted in the foreground, sending the Archangel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Eternal Father offers Gabriel a lily, so that he may bring that symbol of purity to the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, intact in her Virginity before, during, and after giving birth. This splendid painting offers us the contemplation of the Incarnation from a different perspective, which is almost unique in Christian iconography. Usually, the artist represents the Annunciation by showing the scene of the Archangel bursting into the house of Our Lady, depicted while she is kneeling in prayer. In medieval paintings, the words Ave gratia plena come from Gabriel’s mouth, and the words Ecce ancilla Domini from Mary’s. Here, however, we see the chronologically preceding scene in which, almost with human dynamics, the Most August Trinity summons its Divine Messenger, giving him instructions. And the Virgin is small and distant, almost unaware of what awaits her shortly thereafter.

The Feast of the Annunciation always falls during the season of Lent, signifying that God works the greatest miracles when man recognizes himself in his real condition of misery, in his nothingness. And the more we are aware of depending totally on God – not only on a supernatural level but also on a natural – the more He deigns to fill us with His Grace and His gifts. Ecce ancilla Domini: the holiest of creatures, preserved from every stain of sin by a very special Divine Privilege, proclaims herself to be a servant, and becomes Lady, Queen, and Mother of God precisely because Her humility – and along with it the awareness of the need to travel with Christ along the Royal Way of the Cross – is the necessary pre-condition for the Almighty to accomplish great things in Her. Quia respexit humilitatem ancillæ suæ: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. Conversely, in pride the creature rises to compete with the Creator, arrogantly usurps from Him that glory which is reflected to the humble by grace, and claims to have rights – a blasphemous dignitas infinita – that it cannot claim and which merits it not only being repelled into its nothingness, but being sunk even lower. Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui, deposuit poteres de sede, et exaltavit humiles.

And as we contemplate the humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the destiny of glory and honor that the Holy Trinity has established for Her, we cannot fail to contemplate the humility of the Eternal Word, who descends from the infinite glory of Heaven in order to Incarnate Himself in the womb of the Virgin Mary, in obedience to the Father, to expiate on behalf of humanity for sins that are not His, to give His life for us miserable sinners, to restore the divine order that out of pride we have dared to violate. This concept is made explicit in some representations of the Annunciation, in which a ray coming from heaven shows the Holy Spirit descending upon the Virgin, followed by a Baby Jesus holding the Cross.

In Pietro Novelli’s painting we do not find the Virgin set aside, nor do we see Her neglected or diminished in Her Providential cooperation in the work of Redemption; on the contrary, we see the humility of the Word emphasized, who obediently accepts becoming flesh, in order to become the expiatory victim for our sins, and to become food: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink (Jn 6:54-55). That Most Holy Body was formed in the womb of the Virgin Mother, so that that Sacred Flesh could be torn in the sufferings of the Passion and that Precious Blood could flow from the Wounds and Side of Christ as the perfect cleansing of our sins. In this mystery we recognize the Compassion and Co-Redemption of the Mother of God – Regina Crucis – not only in union with the Redemption of Her Son, but even in having given to God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, that human body which made Him True Man and True God; which in the theandric union makes Our Lord Jesus Christ the only King and Lord by Divine Right, both by royal lineage and by conquest. And which, in the magnificence proper to the Holy Trinity, makes Mary Our Lady and Our Queen: Daughter of the Father, Bride of the Paraclete, and Mother of the Word.

This Regality of Christ and Mary finds its natural place in this time of Lent, because there can be no Glory of the Resurrection without first passing by way of Golgotha. If Our Lord and His Most Holy Mother have chosen to give us this wonderful example, we cannot help but take it as a model and prepare ourselves, with the help of Grace, to accept the Crosses that Providence assigns to us as a pre-condition for our eternal reward. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

25 March MMXXV
In Annuntiatione Beatæ Mariæ Virginis