Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Gospel lesson recounts the Annunciation scene, Luke 1:26-38.

Today’s lesson helps us to understand why the Church has described Mary as special yet archetypal, as Alexander Schmemann notes. On the one hand, there is nobody else quite like Mary. She was given the honor of being the Mother of God, and her title ‘Theotokos’ (God-bearer) from the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) reflected Christ’s dual natures: his humanity and divinity. Quite clearly, much attention has been given to Mary’s uniqueness over the centuries.

But Mary also reveals an individual relationship that is possible for each of us with the Holy Spirit, and in this vital sense, she is also one of us. When Mary said ‘yes’ to God’s request, Mary experienced her own personal Pentecost, the giving of the Holy Spirit. (Doubtless, it is no accident that Mary is traditionally included along with the Apostles in icons of the later Pentecost event.)

Mary’s experience shows us a pattern that we can all experience. By turning ourselves to God, we open ourselves to the possibility of an ‘exclusive relationship’. Miraculously, God has made us with the capacity to actually hold the Spirit of God in our individual being. If God gifts his Spirit to us, this becomes so much more than a nice addition or augmentation of our person. The Spirit becomes the very substance of our lives, the very ‘life of my life’ — as Schmemann puts it so beautifully. Only through God’s indwelling do we fully become ‘icons and names of the Holy Spirit’, translucent bearers of God’s light, and fully ourselves.

Mary’s important example to us, then, is in her obedience, in her submission, in her humility — not an easy example to emulate, and certainly not popular qualities in our day! But if we do follow her lead, the Spirit can come and transform us in ways we don’t yet understand.

Yours in Christ,
Justin