The Annunciation: Be It Done to Me According to Your Word

In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, the angel Gabriel is sent from God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man of the house of David named Joseph. The virgin's name is Mary.

Gabriel enters and greets her: Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Mary is perplexed by the greeting and wonders what it might mean. He tells her not to be afraid: she has found favor with God. She will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and she is to name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David.

Mary asks the question she must ask, the question of biological reality: How will this be, since I am a virgin? The angel explains: the Holy Spirit will come upon her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow her. The child born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God. And as a sign — Elizabeth, her relative, the one thought to be barren, is six months pregnant. For nothing will be impossible with God.

Mary says six words in Greek: Idou he doule Kyriou — Behold the servant of the Lord. And then: Let it be done to me according to your word. The angel departs.

Mary goes immediately to visit Elizabeth. When Elizabeth hears the greeting, the child in her womb leaps, and she is filled with the Holy Spirit and cries out: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?

And Mary speaks: My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. The Magnificat unfolds — a hymn that draws deeply on Hannah's prayer in I Samuel, on the Psalms, on the prophets, declaring that God has scattered the proud, brought down the mighty from their thrones, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry, and sent the rich away empty. The revolutionary program of the kingdom is announced by a teenage girl in a private home before a single public event has occurred.