Daily Mass Readings — Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord
"Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." — Isaias 7:14
Liturgical Context
Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord — Festum Incarnationis — the moment when the eternal Son of God became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. As a Solemnity, this feast supersedes the Lenten feria entirely: the Gloria is sung, and the Creed is said with a profound genuflection at the words et incarnatus est. The date, exactly nine months before Christmas, marks the very beginning of the Redemption — not at Calvary, but here, in a hidden room in Nazareth, in Mary's fiat. The readings move from Isaiah's ancient prophecy to Hebrews' theology of the Incarnation as the supreme act of obedience, to Luke's account of the annunciation itself. In the midst of Lent's penitential journey, the Church pauses to adore the mystery from which the entire journey proceeds: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
✠ First Reading — Isaias 7:10–14; 8:10
¹⁰ And the Lord spoke again to Achaz, saying: ¹¹ Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God either unto the depth of hell, or unto the height above. ¹² And Achaz said: I will not ask, and I will not tempt the Lord. ¹³ And he said: Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also? ¹⁴ Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
¹⁰ [8:10] Devise a plan, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not stand: because God is with us.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
Isaiah delivers this prophecy to the faithless king Achaz who refuses a sign — and so God gives him one anyway, infinite in scope: a virgin shall conceive. The DR renders the Hebrew almah as virgin, following the Septuagint (parthenos) and the constant tradition of the Church. Saint Jerome, defending this reading against those who would diminish it, insists that the sign given would be no sign at all if it referred merely to a young woman of ordinary birth (Against Helvidius). The Church has always understood this verse as a direct prophecy of the Incarnation — a reading confirmed by the angel Gabriel's words to Mary, by Matthew's citation of this verse at the nativity (Mt 1:23), and by the teaching of the Councils. The last verse — because God is with us — is the translation of Emmanuel, the very name of the Child. All of history's plans devised against God collapse before this one fact: He is with us, and He has been with us since the moment Mary said fiat.
✠ Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 39 (40):7–10, 11
R. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.
⁷ Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire; but thou hast pierced ears for me. Burnt offering and sin offering thou didst not require: ⁸ Then said I, Behold I come. In the head of the book it is written of me that I should do thy will: ⁹ O my God, I have desired it, and thy law in the midst of my heart.
R. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.
¹⁰ I have declared thy justice in a great church; lo, I will not restrain my lips: O Lord, thou knowest it. ¹¹ I have not hid thy justice within my heart: I have declared thy truth and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy mercy and thy truth from a great council.
R. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.
Commentary
This Psalm is placed on the lips of Christ Himself by the Letter to the Hebrews — Behold I come: in the head of the book it is written of me: that I should do thy will (Heb 10:7). The moment of the Annunciation is exactly this: the eternal Son entering the world with this Psalm on His lips, accepting the body prepared for Him and offering it, in advance, to the Father. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in his celebrated homily on the Annunciation, meditates that the whole of creation held its breath waiting for Mary's answer — for the answer of the human race, given through the one woman who was pure enough to give it on our behalf (Homilies in Praise of the Virgin Mother, Homily IV). And Mary's fiat echoes the Psalm: Lo, I come to do Thy will. She who is the first disciple already prays with her Son's own prayer.
✠ Second Reading — Hebrews 10:4–10
⁴ For it is impossible that with the blood of oxen and goats sin should be taken away. ⁵ Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to me: ⁶ Holocausts for sin did not please thee. ⁷ Then said I: Behold I come: in the head of the book it is written of me: that I should do thy will, O God. ⁸ In saying before, Sacrifices, and oblations, and holocausts for sin thou wouldest not, neither are they pleasing to thee, which are offered according to the law. ⁹ Then said I: Behold, I come to do thy will, O God: he taketh away the first, that he may establish that which followeth. ¹⁰ In the which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Commentary
The Letter to the Hebrews reveals the theological heart of the Incarnation: the body prepared for Christ is itself the sacrifice. The whole system of animal sacrifice was never the point — it was the shadow; the body of Christ is the substance. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that the Incarnation was ordained from all eternity precisely as the instrument of our sanctification: we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus Christ once — semel, once, once for all, definitively and unrepeatable (Summa Theologiae, III, Q.22). The Annunciation is therefore not merely a tender domestic scene; it is the moment when the eternal sacrifice enters time. The body that Gabriel announces is the same body that will hang on the Cross, rise on the third day, and be offered for ever at every Mass. When the priest says Hoc est corpus meum, he continues what began in Nazareth when the angel departed and the Word took flesh.
✠ Verse Before the Gospel — John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us: and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
✠ The Holy Gospel — Luke 1:26–38
The Lord be with you. — And with your spirit.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke. Glory be to Thee, O Lord.
²⁶ And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, ²⁷ To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. ²⁸ And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. ²⁹ Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. ³⁰ And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. ³¹ Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. ³² He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. ³³ And of his kingdom there shall be no end. ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? ³⁵ And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: ³⁷ Because no word shall be impossible with God. ³⁸ And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise be to Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.
Commentary
Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. In these few words, the Virgin Mary speaks for the whole human race — and the Word takes flesh. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon saw in Mary's obedience the direct reversal of Eve's disobedience: "The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary" (Against Heresies, Book III, ch. 22). Where Eve said I will, Mary says be it done to me. The CCC teaches that Mary's fiat was a truly free act — not coerced, not merely passive, but the free cooperation of a creature with her Creator in the work of Redemption (CCC §494). Note the DR's rendering: Hail, full of grace — gratia plena — not merely favoured, but filled, overflowing, incapable of containing more. She who is full of grace becomes the vessel through which grace enters the world. The angel departs: there is nothing more to say. The Word is already dwelling within her.
✠ Closing Prayer
O Lord God, who didst send Thine angel to a Virgin in Nazareth and didst take our flesh from her fiat: we adore the mystery of Thine Incarnation, whereby Thou didst enter our poverty that we might be clothed in Thy glory. As Mary said be it done to me according to Thy word, give us the grace to say the same — in every suffering, every darkness, every call we do not fully understand. Let the body Thou didst prepare be offered in us as it was offered on the Cross: once, wholly, for ever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory be...
✠ Laus Deo semper — Praise be to God always ✠
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