Annunciation – Father Gavril Galev
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Today is the beginning of our salvation and the revelation of the eternal mystery:
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin, as Gabriel announces the good news.
That is why let us also cry to the Theotokos:
Rejoice, O Full of Grace, The Lord is with You!
(Troparion of the Annunciation)
When eleven years of service and abode of the Most-Holy Virgin in the temple of Jerusalem had passed, and fourteen years since Her birth, that is, when She entered Her fifteenth year of Her life, the priests told Her that, according to the Law, She could no longer remain in the temple, but ought to get engaged and get married. But to the great surprise of all the priests, the Most-Holy Virgin replied that She was devoted to God and that She wanted to remain a girl (Virgin) until death, without marrying anyone.
Then, by the providence and inspiration of God, the High Priest Zacharias, the father of Saint John the Baptist, together with the other priests, gathered twelve unmarried people from the tribe of David, to entrust to one of them the Virgin Mary, in order to take care of Her, and to preserve Her girl-ship (virginity). She was entrusted to the old and righteous Joseph of Nazareth, who was also Her relative. At Joseph’s home, the Most-Holy Virgin continued to live as she did at Solomon’s temple.
But when the time which was prophesied by the prophet Daniel came to an end, and when God was pleased to fulfil His promise to Adam and the prophets, the great Archangel Gabriel appeared in the room of the Most-Holy Virgin, as some holy writers write, at the very moment when She held the book open to the prophet Isaiah and ponder his great prophecy: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14).
Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Most-Holy Theotokos in the Arch-angelical light and announced to Her:
“Rejoice, You who are Full-of-grace! The Lord is with you! ‘, The One who was before You, is now with You, and a little later He will be born of You. He who is before all eternity is now in the time. Oh immense love-of-mankind! Oh unspeakable mercy! ”
Upon hearing this greeting, the Most-Holy Virgin was confused about what that miraculous greeting was. She was confused and amazed, because the Angel had never before come in such great heavenly glory and with such a joyful greeting, and She was also confused by the novelty of the greeting, that She, a girl, is counted among women. The Angel continued:
“Behold! You will conceive in Your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end ”(Luke 1: 30-33).
To this the Most-Holy Virgin Mary said to the Angel: “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” (Luke 1:34).
This does not mean that the Most-Holy Virgin did not believe in the words of the Angel, but She, being filled with the grace of God, knew exactly that She would give birth to the Announced One, because She had learned this from God Himself in the temple; She just did not know how this would happen, being a girl, who did not know a man. St. Gregory of Nyssa says, it is as if the Most-Holy Mother of God said to the Angel: “Tell me the way of the Nativity, O Angel! And you will find My heart prepared for God’s purpose. “Because I want such a fruit, but without violating virginity.”
And the Angel answered and said to Her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon You, and the power of the Highest will overshadow You; therefore, the Holy One who is to be born of You will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35).
“From Him you will conceive in Your womb; He will conceive in You, in a way that is beyond contemplation. The Holy Spirit, The One who does everything, will do that in You, O, Most-Holy Virgin, in Your pure womb He will seedlessly arrange, from Your body, another body for the bodiless God the Word. For through You, a door sealed with purity and with virginity guarded (upheld), the Lord will pass as a ray of sunshine passes through glass and crystal, sanctifying and illuminating You with His divine glory, in order to become a true Mother-of-God, bringing forth a perfect God and a perfect Man, and remaining a virgin at giving birth as you were before giving birth,” said Saint Ambrose.
Hearing this good news, the Most-Pure One answered with the deepest humility: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to Me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And immediately in Her womb, by the action of the Holy Spirit, incarnation took place in an unspeakable way, without bodily pleasure, but not without spiritual pleasure. Because then the heart of the Most-Pure Virgin was especially melted from the godly yearning, and Her spirit burned with the flame as of Seraphim’s love, furthermore Her whole mind was immersed in God and was delighted by His love in an unspeakable way. And in that, in Her spiritual delight, with sweet love of God and mind observation of God, the Son of God was incarnate, and the Word became flesh and, by incarnation, dwelt among us.
“Because the King of all, greatly desired the mysterious beauty of Ever-Virgin Mary, as David before prophesied” (Ps. 44:11). “He made the heavens to bow and He also and came down” (Ps. 17: 9), and overshadowed Her” (Luke 1:35), that is, the power of the Most High came to dwell in Her in His very Hypostasis. He did not reveal His presence through darkness and fire, as He did with Moses (2Moses 19:16; 18), nor through the storm and the cloud, as He did with Elijah (1 Kings 18:45), but the revealed power of the Highest directly overshadowed the perfectly pure womb of the Virgin without anything mediating, neither the air of the earth or the sky, nor anything visible or invisible. “Because that was not overshadowing, but a perfect union,” said Saint Gregory Palamas.
Fr. Gavril Galev
Abbot of the monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
