THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE LORD - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

The Word became flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory. JN 1:14

ISAIAH 7:10-14,8:10

My Soul's Beloved,

Signs of Your loving providence are everywhere if we care to look for them, take heart, and be consoled by them, and in doing so we increase our faith, hope, love, and confidence in Your ever-present help which is readily available to all who call on Your Name. Signs can be great but mostly it is the little signs that constantly remind us that You are close to us, You are Emmanuel - God with us. Unlike Ahaz, Lord, we thank You for these signs that lift our spirit each time we recognize that Your loving, tender, and compassionate gaze is always on us.

For those who are too afraid to ask for a sign Lord because they are afraid one has been given anyway, it is a sign that brings not fear but hope into are dark, dreary, hate-filled, violent world. It is the universal sign of hope - a young woman with child. But this is not any woman and this is not any child but the fairest of all God's daughters Mary, the handmaid of the Lord, and in her, the almighty Word leaped from the heavens and came to nestle in her womb Taking Your flesh from her body, You became the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are we who are invited to the Supper of the Lamb.

Then Isaiah said:
‘Listen now, House of David:
are you not satisfied with trying the patience of men
without trying the patience of my God, too?
The Lord himself, therefore,
will give you a sign.
It is this: the maiden is with child
and will soon give birth to a son
whom she will call Immanuel,
a name which means “God-is-with-us.”’

PSALM 39(40):7-11

Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.

You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings,
but an open ear.
You do not ask for holocaust and victim.
Instead, here am I.

In the scroll of the book it stands written

that I should do your will.
My God, I delight in your law
in the depth of my heart.

Your justice I have proclaimed

in the great assembly.
My lips I have not sealed;
you know it, O Lord.

I have not hidden your justice in my heart

but declared your faithful help.
I have not hidden your love and your truth
from the great assembly.

Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.

HEBREWS 10:4-10

My Soul's Beloved,

The endless ritual sacrifices and offerings to God prescribed by Moses following the will of God in the Old Testament served their purpose and were a foreshadowing of the one, true, holy, and only pleasing once-for-all eternal Sacrifice that God would receive later as pleasing and acceptable in His sight. One which has the power to take away the sins of the whole world. Unlike the endless sacrifices of goats, lambs, and bulls, which, as St. Paul says, were useless for taking away the sins of the world. They did nothing to help them avoid sin and strengthen them in virtue. These were just rituals that were a foreshadowing of the real, only, and holy Sacrifice that would make atonement for the sins of Adam and the whole world. 

Beloved, God, from the beginning after the fall of Adam, desired to save us because He loved us so much He did not want us to perish but have eternal life. So He desired You, His only Son, to come into our fallen world, by taking on a Body from the womb of the Virgin. He prepared this Body carefully, ensuring that the Virgin daughter chosen by Him to clothe You in flesh was to be free of all stain of sin. Her body was sinless, pure, holy, immaculately conceived without original sin for our God, her Son, redeemed her by the power of His Blood received from her and the power of the Cross, except You did so, before the fact for with God all things are possible.

You offered Yourself to the Father as a pleasing, holy, and acceptable Sacrifice and by Your self-emptying obtained for the entire human race forgiveness, redemption, pardon, and restoration to the family of God. Thank You, Lord, for Your 'Yes" that gave us so glorious a Savior, Redeemer, Brother, Bridegroom, and Friend. Keep us faithful to the end so at last we may behold You face to face as You are, and be united with You forever. 

Then I said,
just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book,
‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’
Notice that he says first: You did not want what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second. And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.

LUKE 1:26-38