To Be the Handmaid of the Handmaid of the Lord

“What manner of salutation is this”? Luke 1:29)

Our Lady, with wonderful modesty and humility, related today’s event to the Evangelist, Saint Luke. The account is so chaste, so simple, so childlike.

We begin with an angel, Gabriel the Archangel. He is sent by the Lord God to a house in Nazareth, in Galilee, to a Virgin espoused to a man named Joseph. Luke then tells us her name “and the virgin’s name was Mary.”

The angel does not knock at the door. He just “comes in.” Perhaps he has visited this maiden before, certainly other angels have. Mary has a guardian angel as well with whom she, no doubt, was intimate. The angels were in awe of Mary. She did not know that.

Nothing is said about the young Virgin being afraid of her visitor, only that she was troubled by the words of his greeting: “Hail, full of grace the Lord is with thee.”

Having come from God, Gabriel finds God already here “with” Mary.

The angel does not at first call the Virgin by her name, Mary, but rather by her unique stature as the most exalted child of God, “full of grace.” Her name is “Full of Grace.” It is who she is, the Immaculata.  Why did God fill her and keep her “full of grace”? This is why:

“Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end” (vss 31-33).

God, through His angel, was asking this humble maiden to be His mother. She should not fear for her lowliness at being so gifted with the fullness of grace. “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.” Now, Gabriel, calls her “Mary” to calm her fear of being given such a grace.

“He shall be called the Son of the Most High” because He is the Son of the Most High God, El Elion. You are saluted as “full of grace” because you are full of grace.

It is only fitting that He who knew no sin should be conceived by the Holy Ghost in her who knew no sin.

Still, Mary was troubled. She believed, but she needed more information: “How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (vss. 34-35).

It was enough. Mary replied: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word” (vs. 38). And the gracious messenger genuflected and “departed from her” and went back to heaven to the One who sent Him. The good angels always obey. Gabriel had to travel from the throne of God to the tabernacle of God, which was Mary. Mission accomplished, he returned home, at angel speed. Of course, the blessed in heaven take heaven with them wherever they are called to go. So Gabriel did not leave the beatific vision. The mystery is that the archangel found God already living there in Mary’s soul, beautifying, fortifyng, and enriching it moment by moment as he spoke to her, grace building on grace.

But God remained with the holy Virgin and, upon her fiat, His awaiting Son took His abode within her instantly and with great enthusiasm: “Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction” (Wisdom 18:15).

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.

Mary’s perfection in grace from conception, however, was a secret even to the angels. They were in awe of her, but only God knew her. After Mary’s “fiat” all the angels knew her; for it was then that she was revealed to them by God whose Son became Incarnate in her womb: “Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, leaning upon her beloved?” (Canticles 8:5). Ah, this is the New Eve, the mother of the New Adam. This is the Immaculate Theotokos.

Many saints taught that the Blessed Mary knew all of holy scripture by an infused grace and also by her intuitive experiential knowledge garnered from her own reading, especially as a young maiden with the holy women in the temple. She was fully aware, therefore, of the redeeming Messiah as the Man of Sorrows, the Lamb of God.

She was fully aware, as well, of the other prophecy of Isaias that the Christ would be born of a virgin: “Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (God with us)” [Is. 7:14]. Some doctors affirmed that Mary, knowing that the time had come for the Savior to be born, desired to be the handmaid of His mother and imitate that blessed one in her virginal consecration. Hence Mary was at first troubled at the message of the angel, then she rejoiced and accepted her own election and her own co-redemptive role in His passion to come: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God my savior.”