Feast of the Annunciation

The Annunciation by Collier

The annunciation is in part about the way that God gives humanity a compassionate embrace. God took us to himself in order to restore our human nature. God took us to himself.

The annunciation is the first step in the drama of God taking us to himself. The annunciation speaks of a God who, like a mother stirred by her child's pain, scoops her up and holds her to God's ample, loving, nurturing bosom, where pain will be eased, loneliness assuaged, and hunger satiated.

The annunciation reminds us that God's feminine nature is equally as important as those images of God which speak in more masculine terms. As truly as God speaks to us as the Lord of History, the one who emerges victorious over death, the one who will rule and reign in glory at the end of time, God also speaks to us as the one who takes us tenderly into God's arms, nurtures us as a mother nurses her children, and takes us to God's own self when we are in the pain of loss, guilt, sin, and death.