We celebrate with joy the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, when the Archangel Gabriel came to the Most Blessed Virgin and promised that she would bear a son. This feast commemorates the most marvelous moment in history, in which the second divine Person assumed human nature in the womb of His Mother. Through His mother He is a member of the human race. The Redeemer did not arrive in the usual way: the power of the Holy Spirit entered the chaste womb of the Virgin, forming the humanity of Christ. The consent of Mary was essential to the redemption. This does not mean that God in His plans was bound by the will of a woman, and that man would not have been redeemed, if Mary had not consented. It means that Mary’s consent was foreseen from all eternity, and therefore was regarded as essential into the design of God.
This is such a momentous occasion that services of the feast of the Annunciation are taken even if it should fall on Palm Sunday, Great Friday, or on the feast of the Resurrection. Because Mary is the meeting place of heaven and earth, the Annunciation icon is always placed on the royal doors.
In the spirit of this feast, we are called to let go when the time is ripe for us to receive something better, to submit obediently to the will of God. If we are forever holding on, we will never be able to receive fresh gifts from the hand of God.