The Annunciation: a Marian Feast for Catholics and Protestants

Today, March 25, the Catholic Church across the world celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation--commemorating the time when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin Mary to announce to her that she would bear the Son of God to the world. As she gave her simple fiat, all of history, all of creation was altered forever.

While there still exists much uneasiness and division between Catholics and Protestants over views of Mary, the Annunciation is a celebration with a deeply Marian character that offers a place for conciliation between people of both Catholic and Protestant traditions. This is true for at least a few reasons:

1. The event it celebrates is explicitly biblical. Although Catholics would argue that other Marian feasts--such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption--are built on strong biblical foundations, Protestants are often suspicious, because the events these other feasts commemorate are not explicitly found in Scripture. Not so with the Annunciation--it is right there in Luke 1:26ff.

2. The focus is clearly Jesus. Again, Protestants tend to be reluctant to embrace some Catholic views on Mary because they seemingly detract from the focus on Jesus. (Perhaps the quintessential example of this would be the Catholic view of Mary as "Co-Redemptrix.") The Catholic Church clearly states that she believes what she does about Mary because of what she believes about Jesus (Catechism, #487), and this is clearly evident in the Annunciation--while Mary plays a central role, the focus of the narrative is the Incarnation of Jesus.

3. Mary plays a central role. While the focus of the Annunciation is the Incarnation of Jesus, it is also clear that Mary plays an indispensable role in the whole event. Catholics need not fear that Mary is a "throw-away" character or a random choice. Mary is clearly graced by God. She is "blessed among women." Her fiat is freely given. It is her blood that runs in Jesus' veins, her DNA in his cells.

4. Incarnation is key. While doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants abound, both see the Incarnation of God as the profoundly central teaching / mystery of the Christian faith. The Annunciation is the great feast of the Incarnation--the Word-made-flesh. Moreover, since nearly all Protestants celebrate the birth of Jesus, surely there can't be much opposition to commemorating his conception.

While Catholics might be hesitant to sit down at a feast in honor of Reformation Day (October 31) and Protestants might shy away from toasting the Blessed Virgin on the Assumption (August 15), it stands to reason that we can come together in prayer and celebration on this holy day.

Making an Enemy of Death

When it comes to preparing for death, very many respected and intelligent--as well as devoutly Christian--people have proposed the virtue of "making friends with death." I believe I do understand the sentiment--to put away all fear of death and embrace it (as one would a friend) as an inevitable and natural reality. I also see the pastoral value of such a sentiment.

But the Scriptures portray death in a much different way: death is the enemy--the final enemy, in fact, to be destroyed by Christ. Death is the "wages of sin," and only enters the natural order when catalyzed by blatant disobedience of the God who is life itself. Further, Jesus came that we may have life, and have it in abundance...to take away the sting of death. 

In this Lenten season, now halfway gone, I propose we be careful not to make death too close a friend. Is death inevitable? Yes. Is it natural? It is now, yes. But living as creatures united to Christ and his death through baptism, we are called to live the heavenly reality in the here-and-now. We are to be blessed (and to receive comfort) by mourning sin and death. Because of the friend we have in Jesus, death, still the enemy, is made supremely impotent. Christ's perfect love, evermore being perfected in our hearts, drives out the fear of death. Indeed, Jesus' own death on our behalf transforms death from being a terrible end to being merely a transition to a new beginning--from being the hopeless dead end to being the entrance to eternal life. As Christians, our role is not so much to become friends with death as it is to laugh in its face, for it has been exposed as what it truly is--the powerless enemy of Almighty God.