Then Isaiah said, “Now listen, descendants of David. Have you not been satisfied trying the patience of people, that you also try the patience of my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin is with child and bears a son and calls his name Immanuel.
From the Gospel Reading: Lk 1: 28 – 35, 38a
The angel came to her and said, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Mary was troubled at these words, wondering what this greeting could mean.
But the angel said, “Do not fear, Mary, for God has looked kindly on you. You shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call him Jesus. He will be great and shall rightly be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the kingdom of David, his ancestor; he will rule over the people of Jacob forever and his reign shall have no end.”
Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be if I am a virgin?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the holy child to be born shall be called Son of God. . . .”
Then Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said.”
Reflection
The time between the prophet Isaiah and Jesus was about 700 years. That means that roughly 700 years passed for Isaiah's prophecy in our first reading to be fulfilled as narrated in today's Gospel.
Even earlier at the dawn of human history God had told the serpent after the fall of Adam and Eve, “I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel” (Gn 3: 15) God’s promises to mankind are fulfilled in the history of mankind.
In our own time we await Jesus' second coming: no one knows when.
As we approach the joyful season of Christmas – our commemoration of the fulfilment of God's promise to be with us – let us recall two areas in our lives, namely, God's gifts to us in our lives, and our wishes and expectations in the future.
Another way of thinking about this is recalling our many blessings from the past and having some awareness of our greatest expectations for the future. How was God faithful to us in our lives? What else do we want from God? Do we sometimes find ourselves impatient with God's response to our needs and expectations?
While we trust that God will fulfill his promises, today’s reading on the Annunciation tells us that the fulfillment of God’s promises needs man’s cooperation: the incarnation of God’s Son would not have happened without the generous “fiat” of Mary.
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