Lectio. In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)

Meditatio. The place, the time and the means by which the message was delivered are all relevant to understanding this passage, as is the identity of the gospelist. Jamieson, Fausett and Brown's commentary [1] states that Luke was a Gentile, that the church father Eusebius called him a native of Antioch and that almost all of the church fathers said that he died a natural death. So Luke represents the first generation of disciples who did not know Jesus directly and were spared the martyrdom so common among that first generation.

The episode occurs in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. It has been argued that this was also the sixth lunar month in the Syro-Macedonian calendar, representing March 25th, the first day of spring, in 5 BC [2]. Nazareth was a garrison town in Galilee, a place so ugly that Nathaniel asked whether any good could come from it. Galilee was part of the former northern kingdom of Israel. It had been partially ethnically cleansed by the Assyrians ca. 730 BC under Tiglath-pileser III. By the time of Jesus was populated by people who were accepted as Jews of a sort inferior to the Judeans, as well as other nationalities [3]. The Galileans were regarded as rebellious, emotional people, and the country was rife with bandits and dubious prophets and healers.

The deliverer of the message to Mary was not the defending angel of the Jewish people, Michael, but Gabriel. Gabriel, whose name means "God is mighty" or "God's strength", is associated with mercy. He appeared to Daniel. Jewish tradition associated him with the destruction of Sodom, with the burial of Moses and with the inscription of the letter Tau on the foreheads of the elect [4]. He is also associated with fire [5].

When Mary is said to be "highly favored", the Greek is eulogeo, often translated as "blessed". The word is repeated four times in the first chapter, with almost half of the 44 occurrences in the New Testament being in Luke (14 instances) and Hebrews (8 instances). When Mary is said to be "troubled" by this, the Greek is diatarasso. Tarasso means agitated, troubled, or in dread, and the prefix dia is an intensifier, meaning that she was troubled throughout her being. "What type of greeting" is potapos aspasmos. The root of potapos is pote, meaning "when?" or "how long?" But potapos has the sense of "from what country?" Aspasmos is routinely used by Paul in his greetings to congregations.

Contemplatio. Adoration. God: you chose to be with us, arriving as a helpless baby and departing as the helpless condemned on the cross of sorrows. None can equal you. Helpless, you still overcame the world. Confession. Our spirits never cease to try to be all-knowing and all-powerful, judging others and seeking to control them. Thanksgiving. Thank you for caring for us, caring so keenly that you went to the cross to save us, so warmly that you endured the countless indignities of being human to know us intimately. Supplication. We cannot be like you in power and wisdom. Help us to be as trusting as Mary who, though but a child herself, submitted her life to the Spirit of Truth to bring forth the child of Love.