John Chapter 1
I am sure that you will recall that the prologue of John’s Gospel begins as follows, "At the beginning of time the Word already was."
When John speaks of the Word he is referring to God’s perfect self-expression, the second person of the Blessed Trinity. John sets the scene in a manner unmatched by anyone since…It is divine inspiration at its most evident! And then he declares that the Word became flesh...true God of true God...one with the Father...the incarnation...Christmas.
And now over to Luke and to the young girl that he loved so much. The young girl, the importance of whose role was to overshadow that of any man or woman before or since…Mary, greater than Abraham, Moses or the Baptist…Mary who stands in the shadow of no one but her Divine Son.
The largest and loudest headlines in the Bible belong to two events: creation and the Incarnation…God’s gift of the universe and His gift of self in the person of Jesus.
The act of Creation is unique in that it involves, by definition, making something out of nothing. Only God creates.
The Annunciation story, on the other hand, is not unique. In fact it has numerous parallels in Sacred Scripture and in other ancient traditions, the closest of which heralds the birth of John the Baptist. But what, none the less, puts the Annunciation in a class equal to that of Creation is the Virginal Conception. For here we have a new creation wherein God’s Spirit, active in the first creation of life, was directly active once again.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us.
