Solemnity of the Annunciation

 The words of Our Lady: "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word" (Lk 1: 38) are hugely significant in the life of the Church and therefore of the world. They are, in fact, according to Pope St John XXIII, along with the words of St Peter: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God" (Mtt 16: 16), constitutive of the Church. The importance of the obedience of Our Lady is tremendous. In Lumen Gentium we hear: "Rightly therefore the holy Fathers see her as used by God not merely in a passive way, but as freely cooperating in the work of human salvation through faith and obedience. For, as St. Irenaeus says, she "being obedient, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race." Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert in their preaching, "The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience; what the virgin Eve bound through her unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosened by her faith." Comparing Mary with Eve, they call her "the Mother of the living," and still more often they say: "death through Eve, life through Mary." (LG, 56) This applies not only to her personally but to the whole of the Church whom she represents and embodies: "For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother. By her belief and obedience, not knowing man but overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, as the new Eve she brought forth on earth the very Son of the Father, showing an undefiled faith, not in the word of the ancient serpent, but in that of God's messenger. (LG, 63) Let us therefore not only honour Our Lady on the Solemnity but also seek to imitate her in our lives.