Monday the 8th of April is the feast of annunciation. Strange in a way to be thinking already about the build-up to the birth of Jesus when we’ve only just been celebrating Easter, but the cycle of the year begins again!
Maybe you feel like you need a rest after the Easter season, time to catch up and take stock ready for the coming summer? We all need that, but the rest is an active rest, in that we have time, but even through the time of rest our calling is ever present.
On the moment of the annunciation (Luke 1:26-38), we are witnesses of Mary’s calling. Mary receives this calling straight from the mouth of God’s messenger, Gabriel. Gabriel doesn’t hold back. Gabriel gives Mary the full picture, at least in terms of the nature of what Mary is being asked to do, to be. She is to bear a child, but not an ordinary child. Mary is to give birth to and bring up the “Son of the Most High”, the inheritor of the throne of David, the Son of God. I’m sure Mary must have found this overwhelming, yet she was willing to accept the call.
Mary had time, this wasn’t going to happen overnight and maybe there were times at the beginning when she questioned whether it had really happened, whether she had actually been called? But she had, and she had taken up the calling! Mary’s journey had begun.
As we begin again the journey with her from the annunciation to the resurrection, maybe now is a time to reflect again on our calling to birth new things, sing new songs and make new wine? We cannot know what the year ahead will hold, but we can know our calling and we can say again:
“Here am I, servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Reflection written by Mark Berry