Annunciation – Father Gabriel Galev
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Today we celebrate the memory of the annunciation when the Archangel Gabriel came to Mary and announced the delightful news, the good news that she would conceive in her womb and give birth to a son. But that son would not be an ordinary man, but would be the Son of God and the Son of Man. That is, the word of God, the Son of God will become incarnate in a human womb and receive human flesh, becoming equal to us in everything, except for sin, so that through Him we may receive the salvation of the world.
This is the moment when the realisation of the dispensation of salvation begins, and all of this happened entirely due to one single person, the likes of which has not been seen again throughout the entire history of humanity, and that is Mary; the Holy Virgin Mary. She who loved God and was so pure, immaculate, that she was worthy to receive God into her womb and give birth to Christ the Saviour, the God-Man Jesus Christ, through Whom the salvation of the entire human race was brought forth.
Therefore, our respect for her is great and her dignity is always next to God. She is not a goddess, but she gave birth to God and is the Mother of God (Theotokos). And in all truth we should all love and respect her with all our heart. Let us constantly pray to her and ask for her intercession before our God and Saviour and her son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We should all have an Orthodox icon of her in our homes. For if it were not for her alone, we would still be wallowing in our sins, we would still be enslaved by passions and sin, by satan and death. However, with the incarnation of Christ, we were given the opportunity to free ourselves from that insurmountable slavery and to experience the beauty of freedom and the grace of God.
And just as in her time the Mother of God said: “Yes” to God and in her womb God supernaturally became human, became God incarnate, so too we, if we do not participate in her “Yes”, we will not receive Christ and for us the dispensation of salvation has not yet been fulfilled. For us Christ has not yet been incarnate and is not yet been born and is not yet resurrected and we are all still in slavery to mortal sins and suffering.
As you can see, the Lord wanted consent from the Mother of God and nothing was done by force, because where there is force, where there is coercion, there is no love. Therefore, the perfect community is the community of perfect love, and that, is respect for perfect freedom.
God does nothing by force, but that which He does is done voluntarily and with our consent and cooperation. The Mother of God was perfectly ready to receive Christ, and therefore without hesitation she said to Him: “Yes”. Not at any moment did she resist or doubt. Despite that, although according to human logic it was not natural for her to give birth, since she had, had nothing to do with a man, nevertheless without resistance, without explanation and completely consciously and freely she received Christ. That is why Christ was incarnated in her womb. So in our spiritual life we should know that every single act of opposition or self-justification is but a rejection of Christ.
And just as the Mother of God gave perfect obedience, perfect consent, and just as Jesus, the Son of God had perfect obedience to his Father in his life, so too God wants us to have perfect obedience. But that obedience is not understood as a curtailment of freedom and slavish submission, but rather, an obedience in free and loving cooperation with God to gain freedom with all the fullness of the grace of the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of life, the fullness of joy, the fullness of love, the fullness of freedom.
Father Gabriel Galev
Abbot of the Monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
07 / 04 / 2025
