Even in New England, you don’t expect snow in October. When the fluffy white stuff started accumulating on our ride down to Cohasset, we were appalled. We were heading to the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Retreat Center located on Jerusalem Road for a day of recollection. As we stepped out of the car, the unseasonably chilly ocean breeze hit us full force, as the wet snow fell on us. Despite the weather though, the setting was incredibly beautiful, with the gray waves crashing on the shore and the statue of Our Blessed Mother a seeming benediction meant to calm the troubled seas.

When I entered the house, Sister Dorothy, whom I had never met, approached me with a warm greeting. Noticing the brooch I was wearing, she remarked on it. It is one that I often wear. A part of the Vatican Collection of jewelry issued a few years ago, it depicts the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary in the Annunciation. Between the two figures, a dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, flies overhead with wings outstretched. Around all the figures, celestial light pours out in beams from the sky above to the very bottom of the image.

In this particular Annunciation scene, Mary is walking in front of the angel and is about to turn to face him. It is as though she were going about her daily deeds, perhaps heading off to the well to draw water for dinner or ambling down the street to visit a friend when she is caught up in surprise by this great mystery.

This depiction of the Annunciation always struck me as a more powerful one than those Fra Lippi or Fra Angelica versions where Our Lady sits peacefully in a room marked with the newly discovered use of perspective to create realistic lines on the floor. She always looked too unengaged in those paintings and far too complacent.

This Mary on my brooch is an active soul, one out in the world, going about her daily routine when suddenly God speaks to her. She is not a lady with a lot of time to sit around and contemplate life. She is someone busy living it. I picture Mary that way. I see her as a woman always ready to serve others.

“Let me show you our Annunciation,” Sister Dorothy said, after admiring mine. She brought me over to a picture in the living room. In that painting, a very young Mary sits startled on the edge of her bed, looking rather disheveled, with the bedclothes all around her. She turns toward the far corner of the room from which an incredible light is emanating. This Mary too is caught off guard, awakened out of her sleep by a dream too amazing to be imagined. I can picture an Annunciation happening like this too. I can imagine God waking Mary up to tell her such news. Who could go back to sleep after hearing such an announcement?

Our lives too are filled with moments of annunciation. God speaks to us of things that must be said. Sometimes the announcements tell us what we do not want to hear. They leave us wondering “Why?” even as we know that we cannot question, that we must accept. This is particularly true when we learn that the innocent are going to suffer from incurable diseases or when we see the sadness caused by a natural catastrophe that punishes indiscriminately the wicked and the good alike.

When I ask “Why?” it is the soft sweet voice of my maternal grandmother Filomena Picariello that comes to me. “Our reward for dying is to learn the answer to every question we have ever asked from hope, from despair, in courage, in fear, in anger, in sadness. In heaven we will find the answers,” she promised. On earth, all too often, they elude us.

The Mary of the Annunciation found an answer that she probably did not want to hear. Young and engaged to Joseph, she learned that she would become the Mother of God. That would be a frightening prospect to even the most intrepid of souls. Unmarried, Mary knew that she faced the possibility of death by stoning for this pregnancy that had come through no action of her own. Yet, her words back to the Angel are fearless and astonishing.

Filled with the most uncanny faith, she proclaims, “I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say.” (Luke 1:38) Mary trusts God, and she knows that whatever God has planned for her is to be accepted and joyfully embraced. This is the true heart of faith, the surrender to the God who loves us, a surrender grounded in the certain knowledge that what God plans for us is what we must want for us too.

In the Magnificat, Mary announces to Elizabeth, her cousin the statements that inspire us so many generations later with love and respect for Our Lady and with hope for God’s action in our own lives. Listen to these beautiful words that Mary so amazingly presents to us for all ages: “My being proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit finds joy in God my savior, For he has looked with favor upon his servant in her lowliness; all ages to come shall call me blessed; God who is mighty has done great things for me, holy is his name; His mercy is from age to age on those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm; he has confused the proud in their inmost thoughts. He has deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. The hungry he has given every good thing while the rich he has sent empty away. He has upheld Israel his servant, ever mindful of his mercy. Even as he promised our Fathers, promised Abraham and his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)

In Mary’s comforting words, we find the hope for our own lives. Mary knew that God was the center of her life, her refuge and her strength. She understood that God was acting directly in her life and she accepted that intervention. Furthermore, she knew that God was acting in the world, and that justice would eventually be done in this world. This is the reversal of the unfairness in life, the setting right of the scales of justice; it is Lazarus feasting in heaven while the arrogant, who could not share and could not give, find punishment to be their reward. This is the handiwork of a God who is faithful to the people who serve and who keeps the promises made to them.

As we approach the Christmas season, I am thinking about all these themes. Facing painful surgery and a too lengthy recovery during this, my favorite time of year, I have been stopped in my tracks like Mary was, though certainly not by an announcement brought by an angel. Nonetheless the message has been delivered by my own failing body that cries out to be fixed. It is not easy to accept this news, coming so close to Christmas, interfering as it will with my life, my job, my plans, my relationships. When interviewing Father David Michael, I noted a telling saying that he quoted, “Man plans and God laughs.” We cannot plan, any more than we can change what must be. What we need to do is to offer that fiat which Mary, our example in faith, so graciously gave.

So this Christmas season, I’ll have to stop all those things that always keep me so occupied, and that I do not want to stop. I want to race out to the “Messiah” and to dinner afterwards; I want to pick out the tree and deck it and the artificial one too; I want to have my holiday parties and bask in the companionship of family and friends; I want to be well enough to go to Midnight Mass and to visit my relatives; I want to be healed and unhurting. In all of this, I hear my own voice, not the voice of God. I hear my will wanting to be done, not the “Thy will be done,” of the Our Father.

Yet, I know that it is in those moments when we stop that we most clearly see the reality of what life is actually all about and that we most often hear the still, soft voice of God whispering to us. This year, my condition is forcing me to stop. Upon further reflection, this may be a good thing. Though I don’t know for sure, it seems to me that it could be good for all of us to voluntarily simplify our Christmas celebrations and to spend more time reflecting upon what God is truly asking of us.

Mary did that. Jesus did too. Christmas is truly the story of everyone stopping to see the miracle of God born among us. Shepherds tending their flocks run off to see the Child; Wise Men leave everything behind to search for Him; all those who seek the real essence of life come to adore Him. God willing, I too shall come to adore Him in an even deeper way this year. This is my Christmas wish for you as well.

May you find that Christmas brings you an increased knowledge of God’s presence in your life and the peace that comes in accepting whatever God is asking of you. May that deep peace and every blessing be yours, both now and in the New Year to come!

– Carole Anne Scott