We Have an Announcement to Make
Archangel Gabriel, 1130 - 1200 AD
A little over two thousand years ago, an Angel delivered a message to a young woman. Most of us know the content of his announcement: You will conceive and bear a son… the child to be born will be holy and will be called the Son of God. Most of us also know how Mary responded to this message, with a phrase that expresses the summit of human freedom: yes.
Today each of us will receive many proposals, messages, and announcements. In all their variety, perplexity, and cacophony, they will each convey the exact same tidings:
You – who sit at your desk, or on your couch, or cross-legged on your yoga mat, or in the front seat of your car – you will conceive and bear – in your thoughts and in your words, in what you do and in what you decide not to do…
in the spreadsheet you fill out,
in the diaper you change,
in the weeds you pull up,
in the teen you teach to drive,
in each vaccination you give,
during each audition,
as you scrub the bathroom tiles,
with each stamp you affix,
with each stroke on your keyboard,
and in all the memos you read
– a son… the Son of God.
You and I gain nothing from Mary’s yes unless we each begin to seek out and recognize and affirm the incarnate body of eternal Love in the fragile and fleeting stuff of our own daily existence. If only it were enough to say yes once a day, or once weekly, when we respond amen to the body of infinite Good on earth! Unfortunately, one daily amen is worth less than none at all if it betrays a lie at the heart of our lives: that we say yes with our lips, while our hearts, at every other moment, are far from him.
Christ is present in the feet of the person who delivers the mail, the emails of my accountant, the eyes of the barista, the hands of my daughter, the voice of my boss, the heart of the person I like least...
But, but, but… my postman is incompetent, the accountant misses deadlines, the barista is surly, my daughter slapped me, the boss just fired me, my neighbor gossiped about me, and everyone believed her.
Nonetheless, Gabriel announces to you, and to me, that the Holy Spirit intends to overshadow each of these circumstances and that Christ will be born in them, whether we find them convenient or destructive.
Some might say that Mary’s own immaculate conception conferred on her a strength that allowed her earthly life to manifest a continuous fiat, while we, poor slobs, are incapable of becoming a walking talking yes. But let’s not fool ourselves; once baptized, you and I can repeat, with King David, there is no thing I lack… We might tremble at these words because of all the responsibility they imply.
Responsibility: the urgency to respond.
When the mail carrier drops a letter into a puddle, or delivers a package for someone who moved out over a decade ago, or feeds your ebay purchase to the neighbor’s dog, saying yes to Christ’s concrete and fleshly presence in your interaction with him does not mean endorsing incompetence.
Instead, we’re invited to recognize and affirm every slightest and most ephemeral spark of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice, and Love that waits, with divine patience, to be born in us, given to us.
These glints require kindling before they can burst into a conflagration: I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already aflame!
How will you respond?
