Annunciation of the Lord (25 March)

"In Annuntiatione Domini": the name and the rank

In the current Roman Missal, the feast of 25 March bears the Latin title In Annuntiatione Domini, "of the Annunciation of the Lord" (Ignispedia translation), with the rank of solemnity, the highest in the calendar^[12]. The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, which set the order of precedence among celebrations, place the solemnities of the Lord, of the Virgin Mary and of the saints inscribed in the General Calendar at the third degree of their table; ahead of them come only the Easter Triduum, the solemnities of Christmas, the Epiphany, the Ascension and Pentecost, the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Easter, Ash Wednesday, the weekdays of Holy Week from Monday to Thursday and the days of the Easter octave^[13]. This hierarchy alone explains the transfers the feast undergoes in certain years: the Annunciation yields to the days that outrank it, then is celebrated on the first free day.

Unlike Christmas or the solemnity of Holy Mary, Mother of God, the Annunciation is not today a holy day of obligation: canon 1246 of the Code of Canon Law, which lists the days on which the faithful are bound to take part in Mass, does not mention it^[14]. It was not always so. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Catholic Encyclopedia recalled that it had been a day of obligation throughout the Church, before that obligation was lifted for France on 9 April 1802 and, for the United States, by the Third Council of Baltimore in 1884^[15].

Why "of the Lord"? The title restored in 1969

Until the reform of the calendar, the feast was entitled In Annuntiatione Beatae Mariae Virginis, "of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (Ignispedia translation). The Calendarium Romanum published in 1969 soberly justifies the change: the title was changed to In Annuntiatione Domini "so that it may be more clearly understood that it is principally a solemnity of the Lord"^[16]. The same official commentary recalls that the solemnity, "of Eastern origin, was received in Rome in the 7th century under the title of Annunciation of the Lord, as the Liber pontificalis attests", and that "the Eastern rites, like the Ambrosian rite, have always counted it among the solemnities of the Lord"^[17]. The 1969 change is therefore not an innovation but a restoration: the old Latin calendars already knew the names Festum Incarnationis, Initium Redemptionis, Conceptio Christi and Annuntiatio Dominica^[18].

Paul VI clarified the scope of this choice in the exhortation Marialis cultus, showing that the Christological title does not efface the Virgin:

"For the solemnity of the Incarnation of the Word, the ancient name 'Annunciation of the Lord' was restored in the Roman Calendar by a reasoned decision, but the celebration was and remains a joint feast of Christ and the Virgin: a feast of the Word who becomes 'son of Mary' (Mk 6:3), a feast of the Virgin who becomes Mother of God." — Paul VI, apostolic exhortation Marialis cultus, 2 February 1974, no. 6^[19]

The same text describes the two faces of the mystery. On Christ's side, the solemnity is "a memorial of the saving fiat of the incarnate Word" and "a commemoration of the beginning of redemption"; on Mary's side, it is "the feast of the new Eve, the obedient and faithful virgin", who became "the true Ark of the Covenant and the true Temple of God", and thus "the memory of a culminating moment in the dialogue of salvation between God and man"^[20]. The 1969 calendar moreover places the Annunciation among the feasts of the Lord "in which Jesus is intimately united to his Mother", together with the Presentation of the Lord of 2 February^[21].

A feast of the Incarnation in the midst of Lent

The Catechism places the Annunciation at the very heart of the liturgical year:

"The liturgical year is the unfolding of the diverse aspects of the one Paschal mystery. This is true in a particular way of the cycle of feasts surrounding the mystery of the Incarnation (Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany) which commemorate the beginning of our salvation and communicate to us the first fruits of the Paschal mystery." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1171^[22]

This place explains the paradox of the date. Celebrated in the midst of Lent, the feast makes heard amid penance a message of Christmas. The great liturgist Dom Prosper Guéranger expressed it thus in the 19th century:

"In the very midst of austere Lent, behold, we already begin to taste the ineffable joys of the feast of Christmas; in nine months more, our Emmanuel conceived on this day will be born in Bethlehem [...]." — Dom Prosper Guéranger, L'Année liturgique, "Lent", for 25 March^[23]

The coincidence with Lent weighed on the whole history of the feast: it is because 25 March falls in Lent or in Paschal time that Visigothic Spain instituted in the 7th century a great feast of the Mother of the Lord on 18 December, and it is because feasts were not normally celebrated during Lent that the Council in Trullo had, in 692, to make an exception for the Annunciation — two episodes recounted below. To this day, white is worn then, the colour of the "celebrations of the Lord which are not those of his Passion" and of those of the Virgin Mary^[24], amid the violet of the penitential season.

The Gospel proclaimed on 25 March is the account of Saint Luke (Lk 1, 26-38), the only evangelist to report the announcement made to Mary; Saint Matthew, who writes from Joseph's point of view, relates for his part the announcement made in a dream to Mary's spouse: "that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost" (Mt 1, 20)^[25]. Luke's account spans thirteen verses. The way Christian art has pictured it — the lily, the enclosed garden, the dove and the ray of light — is studied in the article The Annunciation by Fra Angelico; this section keeps to the text itself, as the liturgy proclaims it.

"The sixth month", at Nazareth: an event set in time and place

"And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 26-27^[26]

Luke does not tell a parable: he dates — "the sixth month" of the pregnancy of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, whose own annunciation comes just before —, he locates — Nazareth, in Galilee —, he names the persons. Celebrating the solemnity at Nazareth itself, on 25 March 2000, Saint John Paul II stressed it: "Luke the Evangelist clearly situates the event in time and space"^[27]. The same evangelist opens his book by affirming that he wrote "according as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word", "having diligently attained to all things from the beginning" (Lk 1, 2-3)^[28]. Yet the Annunciation had but one human witness, the Virgin herself, of whom Luke notes twice that she "kept all these words, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2, 19; cf. 2, 51)^[29].

Some have wished to read these pages as a theological construction rather than as the account of an event. The Catechism answers the objection without minimizing it: some have wondered "whether we are dealing here with legend or with theological constructs with no claim to history", yet "faith in the virginal conception of Jesus met with lively opposition, mockery or incomprehension on the part of non-believers, Jews and pagans"; it "was not motivated by pagan mythology or by some adaptation to the ideas of the age"^[30]. An account that exposed the first Christians to sarcasm had no reason to be invented. The detailed discussion of the objections raised against the infancy narratives of Christ is found in the article Christmas (25 December).

"Hail, full of grace": a salutation without precedent

"And the angel being come in, said unto her: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.' Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 28-29^[31]

The angel's first Greek word, chaïre, which the liturgy renders "Hail", literally means "Rejoice". Saint John Paul II heard in it "an invitation to joy, an invitation echoing the one addressed to the whole people of Israel by the prophet Zechariah: 'Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion! Behold, thy king will come to thee' (Zech 9, 9; cf. also Zeph 3, 14-18)"^[32]. The second, kecharitôménè, is a passive participle rendered "full of grace" or "favoured one": "it is indeed an abundance which reaches its highest degree", and the expression "resounds as if it were Mary's very name"^[33]. The angel, as the encyclical Redemptoris Mater noted, "does not call her by her proper earthly name: Miryam (= Mary), but by this new name: 'full of grace'"^[34].

Benedict XVI, presiding over the solemnity with the cardinals he had just created, gave a reading of great tenderness:

"The Angel, 'entering into her house', does not call her by her earthly name, Mary, but by her divine name, as God sees her and describes her from all eternity: 'Full of grace - gratia plena' [...], grace being nothing other than the love of God, this is how we could ultimately translate it: 'beloved' of God (cf. Lk 1, 28). Origen observes that never was such a title given to a human being [...]." — Benedict XVI, homily of the solemnity of the Annunciation, Saint Peter's Square, 25 March 2006^[35]

This fullness of grace is also the root of a dogma: "Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, 'full of grace' through God (Lk 1, 28), was redeemed from the moment of her conception", which Pope Pius IX defined in 1854 as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception^[36]. The angel's greeting has also become the first half of the most repeated prayer of the Church, the Ave Maria, of which more will be said below.

"How shall this be done?": the Virgin's question

The angel announces the birth of a son who "shall be called the Son of the most High" and of whose kingdom "there shall be no end" (Lk 1, 32-33). Mary answers with a question:

"And Mary said to the angel: 'How shall this be done, because I know not man?' 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.'" — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 34-35^[37]

This question is not Zechariah's. The priest had demanded a guarantee — "Whereby shall I know this?" — and had been struck mute "because thou hast not believed my words" (Lk 1, 18-20)^[38]. Mary, for her part, "does not ask whether the promise can be fulfilled, but only how it will be fulfilled", as John Paul II observed at Nazareth^[39]. Saint Augustine drew from her words a conclusion that has become classic: the Virgin had consecrated her virginity to God even before the Annunciation.

"This is shown by the words Mary addressed to the angel who announced to her that she would bear a child: 'How shall this be done, she said, since I know not man?' She would certainly not have said this had she not previously vowed her virginity to God." — Saint Augustine, On Holy Virginity, 4, 4 (Ignispedia translation)^[40]

The angel's answer places the conception in the order of the Spirit. "The divine answer to her 'how shall this be done' [...] is given by the power of the Spirit", says the Catechism, which specifies that "the Holy Spirit is sent to sanctify the womb of the Virgin Mary and divinely to fecundate it"^[41]. The Church's faith in the virginal conception of Christ and in the perpetual virginity of Mary is rooted in these two verses.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord": the fiat

"And Mary said: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.' And the angel departed from her." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1, 38^[42]

This consent, which the Latin tradition designates — after the Vulgate (fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum) — by the single word fiat, "be it done", is the heart of the feast. Saint John Paul II gave its exact scope in the encyclical Redemptoris Mater, signed on a 25 March:

"This fiat of Mary - 'be it done' - determined, on the human side, the accomplishment of the divine mystery. There is full harmony with the words of the Son who, according to the Letter to the Hebrews, says to the Father when coming into the world: [...] 'Behold, I come to do thy will, O God' (Heb 10, 5-7). The mystery of the Incarnation was accomplished when Mary uttered her fiat [...]." — Saint John Paul II, encyclical Redemptoris Mater, 25 March 1987, no. 13^[43]

Benedict XVI situated this moment with a theologian's precision: it was "when from the depths of her heart she answered: 'I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word' (Lk 1, 38)" that "at that moment, the eternal Word began to exist as a human being in time"^[44]. And John Paul II, linking the Virgin to the patriarch whose faith had opened the history of Israel, concluded: "the faith of Abraham represents the beginning of the Old Covenant; the faith of Mary at the Annunciation inaugurates the New Covenant"^[45].

From antiquity to our own day, the Church has never ceased to ponder these few verses. The voices that follow do not repeat the account: each sheds light on one aspect of it — Mary's faith, the waiting of the whole world, the universal scope of her consent, devotion to the mystery and, in the writings of Luisa Piccarreta, the power of the Fiat uttered in the Will of God. By "life in the Divine Will", these writings mean not only doing God's will, as every faithful Christian strives to do: but receiving His very Will, so that it may live and act within us.

The Fathers: the new Eve and the faith that precedes the flesh

The Second Vatican Council gathered in a few lines the teaching of the Fathers on the Annunciation:

"Rightly, therefore, the Fathers see Mary not merely as passively engaged by God, but as freely cooperating in the work of man's salvation through faith and obedience. For, as St. Irenaeus says, she 'has become the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race through her obedience.' And again, with him a great many of the ancient Fathers gladly assert in their preaching: 'The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith'; comparing her with Eve, they call Mary 'the Mother of the living' and frequently claim: 'Death through Eve, life through Mary.'" — Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium, no. 56^[46]

The Council's notes refer, for the knot untied, to Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies, III, 22, 4) and, for the formula "Death through Eve, life through Mary", to Saint Jerome (Letter 22, 21)^[47]. The same text affirms that "it pleased the Father of mercies that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the work of death, so also a woman should contribute to the work of life"^[48]. The parallel between Eve and Mary, which painters have rendered in their own way, is developed in the article devoted to Fra Angelico's Annunciation.

Saint Augustine, for his part, placed Mary's greatness in her faith even more than in her motherhood. The Catechism takes up his formula: "Blessed Mary is 'greater for having received the faith of Christ than for having conceived the flesh of Christ'"^[49]. John Paul II summed it up in a single sentence: "this Son, as the Fathers teach, she conceived in her mind before she conceived him in her womb, precisely through faith!"^[50] Such is the whole meaning of a feast that honours less a biological marvel than an act of faith, to which the marvel is God's answer.

Saint Bernard: "Answer, O Virgin"

In the 12th century, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux devoted a series of homilies in praise of the Virgin Mother to the Annunciation account alone, commented verse by verse from its opening words, Missus est angelus Gabriel. The fourth contains the most famous page ever written on the instant of consent; the Liturgy of the Hours has it read on 20 December, as Christmas approaches:

"Thou hast heard, O Virgin, that thou shalt conceive a son, not of man — thou hast heard — but of the Holy Ghost. The angel awaits thy answer: it is time for him to return to the One who sent him. We too await, O Our Lady. [...] A brief answer from thee suffices to re-create us, so that we may be recalled to life. [...] Delay no longer, Virgin Mary. Hasten, answer the angel, or rather, through the angel answer the Lord. Answer with a word and receive the Word; utter thine own and conceive the Divine One; speak a passing word and embrace the eternal Word." — Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilies in Praise of the Virgin Mother, IV, 8-9^[51]

The whole point of the feast appears in this text: God willed to wait for a woman's answer. Bernard brings into this waiting Adam, pleading "all in tears", the patriarchs, and "the whole world", "prostrate at thy feet", for "on thy word depend the relief of the afflicted, the redemption of captives, the deliverance of the condemned, the salvation, in short, of all the sons of Adam"^[52]. Benedict XVI, citing another image from the same doctor, saw in Mary the aquaeductus, the "privileged channel" through which the divine Source flows down to men^[53].

Saint Thomas Aquinas: a consent "in the name of the whole human nature"

The Summa Theologiae devotes a whole question to the Annunciation (IIIa, q. 30), divided into four articles: was it fitting that the Virgin receive this announcement? by whom was it to be made to her? in what manner? in what order^[54]? In the first article, Saint Thomas Aquinas gives four reasons for this fittingness, the last of which has become one of the most quoted formulas in reflection on Mary:

"It was fitting that it should be announced to the blessed Virgin that she would conceive Christ. First, that the order befitting the union of the Son of God with the Virgin might be kept: that her mind should be instructed concerning him before she conceived him in her flesh. [...] Third, that she might offer to God the voluntary gift of her obedience, to which she showed herself ready by saying: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord.' Fourth, to show that there is a kind of spiritual marriage between the Son of God and human nature. That is why, through the Annunciation, the consent of the Virgin was sought in the name of the whole human nature." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 30, a. 1 (Ignispedia translation)^[55]

The Catechism has taken up this formula, applying it to Mary's cooperation in salvation: "She gave her consent 'in the name of all human nature'"^[56]. John Paul II gave it a cosmic breadth in his letter on the rosary: "The whole history of salvation, indeed in a sense the history of the world itself, culminates in this announcement [...]. In her turn, the whole of humanity is as it were contained in the fiat by which she promptly corresponds to the will of God."^[57]

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort: 25 March, the proper feast of the true devotion

At the beginning of the 18th century, Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort made the Annunciation the centre of the consecration he taught. His Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin opens with a sentence that announces all the rest — "It was through the Most Holy Virgin Mary that Jesus Christ came into the world, and it is also through her that he must reign in the world" — and expressly designates 25 March as the proper feast of this way^[58]:

"They will have a singular devotion to the great mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, the 25th of March, which is the proper mystery of this devotion." — Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, no. 243^[59]

Montfort sees in the Incarnation "the first mystery of Jesus Christ, the most hidden, the most exalted and the least known", the one in which Jesus, "jointly with Mary, in her womb", "chose all the elect", and which is "an abridgement of all the mysteries, containing the will and the grace of all" (no. 248)^[60]. He links this mystery to the very verse which the liturgy of 25 March has us hear: Ecce venio ut faciam voluntatem tuam, "Behold, I come to do thy will" (Ignispedia translation)^[61].

The Fiat of the Redemption in the writings of Luisa Piccarreta

In the 20th century, the writings of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947) gave the fiat of the Annunciation a central place in the spirituality of the Divine Will. The history of salvation is read there in three Fiats: the Fiat of Creation, the Fiat of Redemption, linked to Mary's consent, and the Fiat by which God wills to fulfil the petition of the Our Father, "thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven"^[62]. This is what Jesus said to Luisa on 10 January 1921:

"I asked for a first Fiat in my Will from my dear Mother. Oh! the power of this Fiat in my Will! As soon as the Fiat of my Mother met the divine Fiat, they became One. My Fiat raised my Mother, divinized her, flooded her — then, without any human intervention, she conceived my Humanity. It is only in my Fiat that she could conceive my Humanity." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, volume 12, 10 January 1921^[63]

A week later, on 17 January 1921, the same text traces the whole life of grace back to the Annunciation: "If man is reborn after sin, if the newborn is baptized, if Heaven opens to receive souls, it is as a result of the Fiat of my Mother. Oh! the power of this Fiat!"^[64] The same day, Jesus stresses that the Virgin "had nothing extraordinary in her outward life: no miracle, no sign to distinguish her from other women"^[65] — the greatness of Nazareth was wholly interior.

In the meditations Luisa wrote in 1932 in obedience to her confessor, La Vierge Marie dans le Royaume de la Divine Volonté, it is the Virgin herself who recounts the moment:

"I uttered my 'fiat' and, O marvel, the two fiats fused. The consequence of this was the descent of the Divine Word into me. My 'fiat', to which God granted the same value as His own, gave Life to the tiny Humanity of the Divine Word, from the Seed constituted by my humanity. Thus the great Prodigy of the Incarnation was accomplished." — The Virgin Mary, in Luisa Piccarreta, La Vierge Marie dans le Royaume de la Divine Volonté, day 19^[66]

These pages belong to private revelation and are received as such, not to be confused with the teaching of the magisterium quoted above. They add nothing to the dogma; they make us contemplate its depth: "God Himself did not will to accomplish the great Prodigy of the Incarnation alone. He wanted me with Him in this undertaking"^[67]. The doctrine of the redemptive Fiat is set out for its own sake in the article What is the redemptive Fiat?, and Mary's place in this spirituality in The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will.

The date of 25 March is first explained by Christmas: nine months separate conception from birth. But Christian tradition has seen far more in this day than a simple calculation. The scholarly debate over which of the two dates was fixed first — whether 25 March was deduced from Christmas, or Christmas from 25 March — is set out in the article Why is Christmas celebrated on 25 December?; only what concerns the Annunciation itself is retained here.

Nine months before Christmas, three months before the Nativity of John the Baptist

The Roman calendar follows Saint Luke's chronology step by step. The angel tells Mary that Elizabeth "is now in her sixth month" (Lk 1, 36); Mary stays with her "about three months", and then Elizabeth brings forth her son (Lk 1, 56-57)^[68]. Hence the sequence of feasts: the Annunciation on 25 March; the Visitation on 31 May, the date given to it by the 1969 reform "between the solemnities of the Annunciation of the Lord and of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, so as to harmonize better with the Gospel account"^[69]; the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on 24 June; and Christmas on 25 December, exactly nine months after the Annunciation.

The liturgical historian Thomas Talley stressed that this date of the Nativity, "nine months later, stands at the beginning of the liturgical year at Rome"^[70]. The coherence is not merely arithmetical: the Annunciation and Christmas are the two moments of a single mystery, the coming of the Son of God in the flesh — the one hidden in Mary's womb, the other manifested at Bethlehem.

"Conceived and died on the same day": the testimony of Saint Augustine

As early as the beginning of the 3rd century, Tertullian dated the Passion "in the month of March, at the time of Easter, on the eighth day before the calends of April", that is, 25 March^[71]. Two centuries later, Saint Augustine attests that the Church held that same day to be the day of Christ's conception:

"He was therefore conceived and died on the eighth of the calends of April, so that the new sepulchre in which He was buried, in which no one had been laid, and which afterwards received no one, is in perfect accord with the womb that bore Him, which ever remained virgin. It is likewise agreed to place the birth of Jesus Christ on the eighth of the calends of January." — Saint Augustine, On the Trinity, IV, 5, 9^[72]

Augustine presents this reckoning as a tradition "received from the ancients" kept by "the authority of the Church", and notes that Christ "is believed" to have been conceived on that day^[73]. Thomas Talley sums up the state of the ancient sources: 4th-century texts "identify the dates of the Annunciation and of the Passion on 25 March, a date assigned to the Passion as early as the beginning of the 3rd century"^[74]. At the end of the 19th century, the historian Louis Duchesne drew from this a hypothesis that became famous: conception having been placed, like the Passion, on 25 March, the birth would have been fixed nine months later, on 25 December — an explanation which, he admitted, "would be more easily acceptable if it were found ready-made in some author"^[75].

25 March, the first day of the world

The treatise De Pascha computus, composed in 243, probably in North Africa, and long wrongly attributed to Saint Cyprian, held 25 March to be the historical date of the Passion and also made it the first day of Creation, the day on which God separated light from darkness; it placed Christ's birth on the fourth day of Creation, 28 March, the day on which the sun was created: "O how radiant and divine is the providence of the Lord, who willed that Christ be born on the very day on which the sun was made!"^[76] The intuition is the same as Augustine's: God's works answer one another, and the beginning of Redemption meets the beginning of Creation.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the ancient martyrologies associated 25 March with the creation of Adam, the crucifixion of Christ, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the sacrifice of Isaac^[77]. The Roman Martyrology commemorated, on that day, at Jerusalem, the good thief, "who confessed Christ on the cross and merited to hear from Him these words: "Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise""^[78]: even in the calendar of saints, the day of the Incarnation remained also the day of the Cross.

The "sixth month" argument

Another tradition, an Eastern one, based the date on Luke's account alone. Saint John Chrysostom had maintained that Zacharias's vision in the Temple had taken place in autumn, at the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles; the Annunciation, which occurred "in the sixth month" of Elizabeth's pregnancy, thus fell in the month of March. In the 6th century, Abraham of Ephesus takes up this reasoning to justify the feast of 25 March in his homily on the Annunciation, which Fr. Martin Jugie, its editor, dates to the years 530-553^[79][80]. These reckonings make no claim to chronicle-like precision; they at least show that Christians never held the Annunciation to be a timeless symbol, but an event that occurred on a precise day of history, which they sought to recover.

When the year began on 25 March

Because the Incarnation marks the beginning of salvation, a large part of medieval Europe began the year on 25 March: this is the "Annunciation Style", which the historian Arthur Giry describes as "very frequently used in the Middle Ages". He notes that this starting point of the year is attributed to Dionysius Exiguus, and that in France this style was so widespread "that it could be called, exceptionally it is true, mos Gallicanus"^[81].

This reckoning had two variants: the Florentine calculation, which opened the year on the 25 March following Christmas, and the Pisan calculation, which opened it on the preceding 25 March, so that the latter was, according to Giry, "a whole year ahead of Florentine usage"^[82]. The following table shows, after Giry and the English law of 1750, where the usage lasted longest.

In England, the law of 1750 provided that this reckoning, "according to which the year of Our Lord begins on the twenty-fifth day of March", would cease to be used after the last day of December 1751, the year 1752 beginning on 1 January^[83]. For centuries, in part of Christendom, the year number thus changed on Annunciation Day: the civil calendar itself counted the years from the Incarnation.

A feast born in the East

The 1969 Calendarium Romanum recalls it in one sentence: the solemnity of the Annunciation is "of Eastern origin"^[84]. For a long time, historians found no certain attestation of it before the end of the 7th century; Louis Duchesne wrote in 1886 that the feast "has no certain attestation, in the East, before the Council in Trullo (c. 52), held in 692"^[85]. The study published in 1913 by Fr. Martin Jugie on the homily of Abraham of Ephesus pushed that date back by a century and a half. This 6th-century bishop states that none of the great Fathers who preceded him preached "on the great day of the Annunciation"; he presents himself as one of the first to do so, and takes care to justify the date of 25 March^[86]. Jugie concluded:

"It must be concluded that it was in the first half of the 6th century that the feast of 25 March began to be solemnized in the East." — Martin Jugie, "Abraham of Ephesus and his writings", Byzantinische Zeitschrift 22, 1913^[87]

Before that, the mystery of the Annunciation was already meditated and preached, but on another date, "very probably on a date close to the feast of Christmas": Jugie holds that at Constantinople as at Jerusalem, in the 5th century, it was commemorated on the Sunday before Christmas, a custom attested in the Ambrosian rite of Milan^[88]. Around 550, in the time of the great hymnographer Saint Romanos the Melodist, the feast of 25 March was established^[89].

At the end of the 7th century, the council assembled at Constantinople in 692, called "in Trullo" or Quinisext, granted it a privilege unique in the Byzantine Lent, during which only the liturgy of the presanctified is celebrated on weekdays:

"On all the days of the holy fast of Lent, except Saturday, Sunday, and the holy day of the Annunciation, the holy liturgy of the presanctified shall be celebrated." — Council in Trullo (692), canon 52 (Ignispedia translation)^[90]

Rome in the 7th century: the procession of Pope Saint Sergius I

At Rome, the feast appears in the so-called Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries, whose surviving manuscripts date from the 7th and 8th centuries^[91]. The clearest testimony is that of the Liber pontificalis, which records a decision of Pope Saint Sergius I (687-701), a pontiff of Syrian origin:

"He established that on the days of the Annunciation of the Lord, of the Dormition and of the Nativity of the holy Mother of God, ever-virgin Mary, and of Saint Simeon, which the Greeks call Hypapante, a procession would set out from Saint Hadrian and the people would go to Saint Mary." — Liber pontificalis, notice on Sergius I, § 14 (Ignispedia translation)^[92]

In his edition of the Liber pontificalis, Duchesne notes that the Gelasian sacramentary already contains these four feasts and that no source presents them as recent; he concludes "that they were established at Rome in the course of the seventh century". The procession started from the church of Saint Hadrian on the Forum, and Mass was celebrated at Saint Mary Major^[93]. The title "Annunciation of the Lord" borne by the feast in this notice is the very one restored by the 1969 reform^[94].

In Spain: the feast of the Mother of the Lord on 18 December

Wisigothic Spain made a different choice. The Tenth Council of Toledo, assembled in December 656, notes that the feast of the Virgin is not celebrated everywhere on the same day and fixes a single date. It explains why 25 March is unsuitable: the day on which the angel announced to the Virgin the conception of the Word "cannot be celebrated worthily, because it sometimes falls in the days of Lent or in the paschal feast"; it therefore decides that the great feast of the Mother of the Lord will be celebrated eight days before Christmas, on 18 December^[95]. The council gives the reason in a striking formula:

"For what is the feast of the Mother, if not the Incarnation of the Word?" — Tenth Council of Toledo (656), canon 1 (Ignispedia translation)^[96]

The canon did not suppress the 25 March Annunciation: it instituted, as Christmas approached, a Marian solemnity centered on the Incarnation, which took root in the Hispanic rite^[97]. Later called Exspectatio partus, "the Expectation of the Childbearing", it became popular under the name "Our Lady of the O", because after Vespers the choir intoned a long "O" expressing expectation of the Redeemer; when the Latin Church ceased to observe the old prohibition of feasts in Lent, the Annunciation was celebrated twice in Spain, on 25 March and 18 December^[98]. Likewise, the Ambrosian rite of Milan assigned the office of the Annunciation to the last Sunday of Advent while singing a Mass of the Annunciation on 25 March^[99].

From the Middle Ages to the 1969 reform

The feast became everywhere, in the West, a holy day of obligation. The Congregation of Rites raised its rank on 23 April 1895, promoting it to the rank of "double of the first class"; certain dioceses and orders, such as Loreto, the province of Venice, the Carmelites, Dominicans, Servites, and Redemptorists, even celebrated it with an octave, by exception to the rules of Lent^[100]. The reform of the calendar promulgated in 1969 restored to it its title of "Annunciation of the Lord"^[101], and a 1990 decree changed the rule for solemnities falling on a Sunday of Lent: they are no longer anticipated on the Saturday, but transferred to the following Monday^[102].

The following chronology summarizes these stages.

The French date of 9 April 1802, retained by the Catholic Encyclopedia^[103], is that of the indult by which Cardinal Caprara, the pope's legate, reorganized the feasts after the signing of the Concordat: "There remained only four feasts "of precept" or "of obligation": Christmas, the Ascension, the Assumption, and All Saints, the others being transferred to Sunday"^[104].

The readings of the Mass: three times "here I am"

The Mass of the Annunciation begins, before Luke's Gospel, with a prophecy from Isaiah, a psalm and a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews. The following table presents them in the liturgical translation in use.

These texts form a single sentence: the psalmist's "here I am" is taken up by Christ himself, "when he comes into the world" (Heb 10, 5), and finds its answer in Mary's "behold the handmaid"^[105]. The Gospel acclamation sums it up: "The Word was made flesh, he dwelt among us, and we saw his glory" (Jn 1, 14)^[106]. Benedict XVI commented on this pairing on 25 March 2006:

"Before the mystery of these two 'here I am', the 'here I am' of the Son and the 'here I am' of the Mother, reflecting one another and forming a single Amen to God's loving will, we stand in wonder and, filled with gratitude, we adore." — Benedict XVI, homily for the solemnity of the Annunciation, 25 March 2006^[107]

At Nazareth, in 2000, John Paul II saw in the Letter to the Hebrews the key to the whole narrative: this text "lets us hear a conversation between the Father and the Son about God's plan from all eternity"^[108].

The proper prayers

The entrance antiphon of the Mass takes up the same verse: Dominus ingrediens mundum dixit : Ecce venio ut faciam, Deus, voluntatem tuam, "The Lord, entering the world, said: Behold, I come, O God, to do your will" (Ignispedia translation)^[109]. The opening prayer, which the Liturgy of the Hours repeats as the prayer of the day, asks that sharing in Christ's humanity may open men to his divinity:

"Lord, you willed that your Word should take flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary; since we acknowledge in him our Redeemer, both man and God, grant that we may share in his divine nature." — Roman Missal, opening prayer of 25 March, in the translation of the Liturgy of the Hours (AELF)^[110]

The prayer over the offerings recalls that the Church "recognizes that her beginnings are found in the incarnation" of the only Son, and the proper preface, called "of the mystery of the Incarnation", celebrates the Christ whom "the Virgin heard with faith from the heavenly messenger and bore with love in her immaculate womb"^[111]. Paul VI also noted that the prayer of this day may replace the customary prayer of the Angelus^[112]: the Mass of the Annunciation and the daily prayer of the Church answer one another.

The Creed on one's knees

The most visible gesture of the solemnity comes at the heart of the Creed. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal prescribes it in so many words:

"The Creed is sung or recited by the priest with the people, all standing (cf. no. 68). At the words: Et incarnatus est ("By the Holy Spirit, he took flesh" (Ignispedia translation)), etc. all bow profoundly; and, on the solemnities of the Annunciation and of Christmas, all genuflect." — General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 137^[113]

The Missal recalls this in the proper rubric of 25 March: Dicitur Credo. Ad verba Et incarnatus est genuflectitur, "the Creed is said; at the words Et incarnatus est, all genuflect" (Ignispedia translation)^[114]. Only twice in the year does the assembly thus fall to its knees before the Incarnation: on the day the Word takes flesh, and on the day he is born. Even in Lent, the Gloria and the Creed are said, as on all solemnities^[115]. At Nazareth, on 25 March 2000, John Paul II had asked of the whole Church "a conscious and courageous profession of the Creed: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est"^[116].

At the office: Saint Leo's letter to Flavian

The Office of Readings for 25 March has read the famous dogmatic letter of Saint Leo the Great to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, on the two natures of Christ. The liturgy retains a passage in which the mystery of the Annunciation is described as an exchange:

"Littleness was assumed by majesty, weakness by strength, enslavement to death by immortality; and to pay the debt of our human condition, the unchangeable nature was united to the nature exposed to suffering. [...] It was therefore in the whole and complete nature of a true man that the true God was born, wholly in what belongs to him, wholly in what belongs to us." — Saint Leo the Great, Letter to Flavian, read at the Office of Readings for 25 March^[117]

This choice is significant: on the day the Church celebrates Mary's consent, she also recalls that in her, the eternal Son became truly man without ceasing to be God. The Marian feast and the Christological feast are one.

What the liturgical norms provide

25 March falls sometimes in Lent, sometimes during Holy Week, sometimes, more rarely, during the octave of Easter. Three rules of the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year then determine the day of celebration. First, the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Easter take precedence over all solemnities; those that fall on one of these Sundays "are transferred to the following Monday, except when it is Palm Sunday or the Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection"^[118]. Second, a solemnity impeded by a day of higher rank is postponed "to the nearest day that is free" from the privileged days. Third, a proper clause concerns the Annunciation:

"The solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, whenever it falls on a day of Holy Week, shall always be transferred to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter." — Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, no. 60, Roman Missal of 2002 (Ignispedia translation)^[119]

The rubric of the Missal draws the practical consequence for 25 March: Quoties sollemnitas infra Hebdomadam Sanctam occurrit, ad feriam secundam post dominicam II Paschae transfertur^[120]. When 25 March falls on Easter Day or within its octave, every day of which is privileged, the general rule produces the same result: the first free day is the Monday following the Second Sunday of Easter. The Congregation for Divine Worship applied it in 2008, when 25 March fell on the Tuesday of the Easter octave: the solemnity was celebrated on 31 March^[121]. Until the decree of 22 April 1990, a solemnity falling on a Sunday of Lent was instead anticipated to the Saturday^[122].

Transfer years in the 21st century

Applying these rules to the calendar of Easter feasts gives the years in which the Annunciation is not celebrated on 25 March. The following table lists them from 2001 to 2043; the dates for 2008, 2016, 2024 and 2027 have been verified against the official liturgical calendars^[123].

It therefore happens that the Annunciation is celebrated after Easter: that is why the lectionary provides, for the Gospel acclamation, the note "In Paschal Time: Alleluia"^[124]. In 2035, Easter will fall on 25 March itself, a coincidence that has not occurred in the Gregorian calendar since 1951^[125].

In the East, a feast that is never moved

The Churches of the Byzantine tradition follow a different principle. In current usage, far from being transferred, the Annunciation is always celebrated there on 25 March, even during Holy Week: "unlike the other feasts, which are transferred to another day when they fall during Holy Week or at Easter, the offices of the Annunciation are combined with all these offices, including Easter"^[126]. The coincidence of the Annunciation and Easter has a name, Kyriopascha, "the Lord's Passover" (Ignispedia translation). In the Julian calendar, it occurred in 1991 and will recur in 2075^[127]. The Orthodox theologian Thomas Hopko notes that, when the feast falls on a weekday during Great Lent, it is "the only celebration of the eucharistic liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom permitted on a weekday of Great Lent"^[128] — the privilege already recognized by the Council in Trullo in 692.

"Today is the beginning of our salvation"

The Eastern Churches call the feast Evangelismos, "the announcement of the Good News" (Ignispedia translation): it is the very verb of the Gospel, euangelizesthai, used by the hymn of the feast when it says that "Gabriel announces grace" (Ignispedia translation). It ranks among the twelve great feasts of the Byzantine year^[129]. Its troparion, sung at every office of the day, sums up its meaning:

"Today we celebrate the beginning of our salvation and the manifestation of the eternal mystery: the Son of God becomes the son of the Virgin, and Gabriel announces this grace. Therefore with him we cry out to the Mother of God: Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" — Troparion of the Annunciation, Byzantine rite^[130]

The Greek word rendered "beginning", kephalaion, means both the foundation and the commencement: for the East as for the West, 25 March is the first day of salvation. At matins, the canon of the feast takes the form of a dialogue between the archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary^[131], and the greatness of the mystery can be read even in the architecture of the churches of this rite. Paul VI noted this in Marialis cultus: "the main entrance of the iconostasis bears the representation of the Annunciation to Mary, and the apse the image of the glorious 'Theotokos'. This clearly shows that humanity begins its return to God from the fiat of the Servant of the Lord"^[132]. The art of these Byzantine icons is treated in a separate article.

The Akathist Hymn

The most famous Marian hymn of the East, the Akathist Hymn — literally "sung without sitting" (Ignispedia translation) — is linked to the Annunciation. It comprises twenty-four stanzas joined by an alphabetical acrostic; the first twelve recount the Incarnation and the childhood of Christ, beginning with Gabriel's greeting, and the odd stanzas list greetings that all begin with Chaire, "Rejoice" (Ignispedia translation), and end with "Rejoice, Unwedded Bride" (Ignispedia translation)^[133]. Sung today on the fifth Saturday of Lent, it was more probably associated originally with the feast of 25 March; its date and author remain debated, most studies placing it in the 6th century^[134]. John Paul II presented it as "the hymn that the Eastern Church loves above all others"^[135].

One feast, several calendars

All the Churches celebrate the Annunciation nine months before the Nativity, but their calendars differ. The following table shows when the feast falls according to each tradition.

The Coptic Synaxarion, the collection of the daily readings of that Church, reads on 29 barmahat, which corresponds to 25 March of the Julian calendar: "On this day took place the saving annunciation by the glorious angel" (Ignispedia translation)^[136]. The Armenians, who celebrate the Nativity on 6 January with Epiphany, formerly fixed the Annunciation on the eve of that feast, 5 January, before placing it on 7 April^[137].

A feast of peoples: Greece and Lebanon

In Greece, 25 March is both the feast of the Evangelismos and the national holiday: the fighters of the war of independence against the Ottoman Empire chose that day as the symbolic date of the 1821 uprising, so that the beginning of the revolution would coincide with the feast of the Annunciation^[138]. In Lebanon, the Council of Ministers declared on 18 February 2010 that 25 March would be a "common Islamic-Christian national holiday" and a public holiday^[139]. The choice is explained by the fact that the Qur'an itself recounts the announcement made to Mary: "O Mary! Behold, Allah announces to you a word from Him: his name shall be the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary", and Mary answers: "How shall I have a child, when no man has touched me?"^[140] Yet the same book refuses to recognize in this child the Son of God — "It is not fitting for Allah to take a son"^[141] —: the shared feast honors Mary, but it is the Christian faith alone that confesses what the Annunciation reveals, the Incarnation of the eternal Son.

The Angelus

The Annunciation is not only an annual feast: the Church recalls it three times a day in the prayer of the Angelus, which takes its name from its opening words, Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae, "the angel of the Lord brought the message to Mary". Its history is gradual. According to the historian Herbert Thurston, it is certain that the practice of reciting three Hail Marys in the evening, around sunset, had become general in Europe in the first half of the 14th century, and that Pope John XXII recommended it and enriched it with indulgences in 1318 and 1327; a general Franciscan chapter held in the time of Saint Bonaventure, in 1263 or 1269, already invited preachers to have the Ave said at the sound of the compline bell. The three present versicles appear in an Italian catechism printed in Venice in 1560, and the complete form is not attested before 1612; in Eastertide, the Regina caeli replaces it^[142].

Saint John Paul II, opening the Jubilee of the Redemption on 25 March 1983, saw in it the living bond between the feast and the daily life of Christians: "We love the Annunciation of the angel deeply. We return to it three times a day through the prayer of the Angelus."^[143] Paul VI, in Marialis cultus, had defended its value:

"This prayer needs no revision: its simple structure, its biblical character, its historical origin linking it to the plea for protection in peace, its quasi-liturgical rhythm sanctifying various moments of the day, its openness to the paschal mystery which leads us, while commemorating the Incarnation of the Son of God, to ask to be led 'by his passion and cross to the glory of the resurrection', mean that, centuries later, it retains its value unaltered and its freshness intact." — Paul VI, Marialis cultus, no. 41^[144]

The most famous 19th-century painting devoted to this prayer, The Angelus by Jean-François Millet (1857-1859, Musée d'Orsay), shows two peasants interrupting the harvest to recite it^[145].

The Hail Mary

The angel's greeting opens the most widespread Marian prayer of the Church. The Catechism comments on its opening words:

"The greeting of the angel Gabriel opens the prayer of the Ave Maria. It is God himself who, through his angel, greets Mary. Our prayer dares to take up the greeting to Mary with the regard God cast upon his humble servant (cf. Lk 1:48) and to rejoice in the joy he finds in her (cf. Zeph 3:17b)." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2676^[146]

The same paragraph states that "Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her", that she is "in person the daughter of Zion, the Ark of the Covenant, the dwelling place of the glory of the Lord", and that the second part of the greeting, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus", takes up the words of Elizabeth at the Visitation^[147]. Each Hail Mary thus repeats, in abridged form, the feast of 25 March.

The first joyful mystery of the Rosary

The Annunciation finally opens the Rosary: it is the first of the joyful mysteries. John Paul II explained why joy dominates this first cycle:

"The first cycle, that of the 'joyful mysteries', is indeed marked by the joy radiating from the event of the Incarnation. [...] The whole history of salvation, in a sense even the history of the world itself, culminates in this announcement." — Saint John Paul II, apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 16 October 2002, no. 20^[148]

The grotto of Nazareth: "Verbum caro hic factum est"

At Nazareth, the memory of the Annunciation is attached to a grotto hollowed out of the rock, which formed the underground part of a house in the ancient village. According to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, guardian of the sanctuary, the anonymous pilgrim of Piacenza saw there around 570 the "house of Mary" transformed into a church; in the 7th century, the pilgrim Arculf describes a great church "built over the house where the archangel Gabriel spoke to Mary"^[149]. The Crusaders raised a vast cathedral there; on pilgrimage to Nazareth, King Saint Louis came to the grotto and attended Mass there on 24 March 1251, the eve of the Annunciation^[150].

Having returned to Nazareth in 1620, the Franciscans built a small church above the grotto in 1730; the altar from that period bears the inscription Verbum caro hic factum est, "here the Word was made flesh" — the word hic, "here", designating the exact place of the mystery^[151]. The present basilica, built to the plans of the Italian architect Giovanni Muzio, was consecrated on Sunday 23 March 1969 and inaugurated on the feast of the Annunciation of the same year; Saint Paul VI had visited the building site in 1964^[152]. Above the doors can be read the verse of Saint John, Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis^[153].

It is in this basilica that Saint John Paul II celebrated the solemnity on 25 March 2000, during his jubilee pilgrimage to the Holy Land: "25 March 2000, solemnity of the Annunciation in the year of the great Jubilee: today the eyes of the whole Church are turned towards Nazareth"^[154]. There he took up the words of Paul VI, who had called Nazareth "the school of the Gospel", where "one learns to observe, to listen, to meditate"^[155].

The Holy House of Loreto

Tradition identifies the Santa Casa of Loreto, in the Marches, with the walls of the house of Nazareth that rose in front of the grotto: the two sanctuaries complement each other, the part hollowed out of the rock remaining in the Holy Land. This tradition and the studies concerning it are presented in the articles Our Lady of Loreto and Loreto Shrine. Loreto's link with the feast of 25 March was stressed by Pope Francis, who signed the apostolic exhortation Christus vivit "at Loreto, near the Shrine of the Holy House, on 25 March, Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 2019"^[156].

Lourdes, 25 March 1858: "I am the Immaculate Conception"

On Thursday 25 March 1858, the day of the Annunciation, the Lady who was appearing to Bernadette Soubirous in the grotto of Massabielle finally revealed her name, at the sixteenth apparition. The account of the visionary is preserved by the Shrine of Lourdes: "She raised her eyes to heaven, joining as a sign of prayer her hands which were stretched out and open towards the ground, and said to me: Que soy era immaculada councepciou", "I am the Immaculate Conception" (Ignispedia translation)^[157]. Bernadette did not know this theological expression, which Pope Pius IX had defined as a dogma four years earlier^[158]. On the day the Church celebrates the conception of the Son in Mary's womb, the Virgin named herself by the privilege of her own conception. The story of these apparitions is told in the article Our Lady of Lourdes.

The Jubilee of the Redemption and the consecrations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary

On 25 March 1983, Saint John Paul II opened the Holy Door of the extraordinary Jubilee of the Redemption, explaining why he had chosen that day: "For in the Annunciation took place the beginning of the Redemption of the world", and of Mary, "the first redeemed, God made the gateway of the Redeemer into the world"^[159]. One year later, on 25 March 1984, in Saint Peter's Square, he carried out the act of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary requested at Fatima. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith described it thus:

"On 25 March 1984, in Saint Peter's Square, in spiritual union with all the bishops of the world, 'convoked' beforehand, recalling the fiat uttered by Mary at the moment of the Annunciation, the Pope consecrates to the Immaculate Heart of Mary all men and peoples." — Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima, 26 June 2000^[160]

The same document reports that Sister Lucia personally confirmed, by a letter of 8 November 1989, that this act corresponded to the request: "Yes, it was done, as Our Lady had asked, on 25 March 1984"^[161]. In his commentary, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger linked the promise of Fatima to the Annunciation: "Mary's fiat, the word of her heart, changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world — for, thanks to her 'yes', God could become man in our world and remain so for ever."^[162] The story of these apparitions is set out in the article Our Lady of Fatima.

On 25 March 2022, Pope Francis, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, in turn chose the solemnity of the Annunciation for a solemn act of consecration "of humanity, and particularly of Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary", carried out in Saint Peter's Basilica during a penitential celebration and taken up the same day throughout the world^[163]. The prayer explicitly linked the act to 25 March: "The 'yes' that sprang from your Heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace; we hope that peace will come again through your Heart."^[164]

Pontifical documents signed on the day of the Annunciation

Popes have often dated important documents to the solemnity of the Annunciation, as if to place them under the sign of the fiat. The following table lists those whose date formula expressly mentions the solemnity.

The date formulas, taken from the official texts, are all of the same form — for example, for Redemptoris Mater: "Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 25 March 1987, solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the ninth year of my pontificate"^[165].

A day for life

The encyclical Evangelium vitae, signed on 25 March 1995, draws from the Annunciation a consequence for the defence of all human life: "Mary's consent at the Annunciation and her motherhood stand at the very origin of the mystery of the life which Christ came to give to men"^[166]. John Paul II proposed therein "that a Day for Life be celebrated each year in the different countries", without fixing its date^[167]. Several countries have placed it on 25 March. In Argentina, presidential decree 1406/98 of 7 December 1998 declared 25 March of each year "Día del Niño por Nacer", "Day of the Unborn Child" (Ignispedia translation), explaining that this day is the one on which Christendom celebrates the Annunciation and that the conception of the Child Jesus coincides with this date, and recalling that it is also the anniversary of Evangelium vitae^[168]. The Church's reflection on this subject is presented in the article Why does the Church refuse abortion?.

Thus 25 March belongs not only to the past. Each year, in the middle of Lent, the Church returns to Nazareth to contemplate the moment when God asked the consent of a young girl, and when that young girl answered for all: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word."

• The Annunciation by Fra Angelico — the iconography of the scene: the lily, the enclosed garden, the dove and the ray.
• Christmas (25 December) — the solemnity of the Nativity, nine months after the Annunciation, and the historicity of the infancy narratives.
• Why is Christmas celebrated on 25 December? — the scholarly debate on the date of Christmas and of 25 March.
• Holy Mary Mother of God (1 January) and Epiphany (6 January) — the other feasts of the Incarnation cycle.
• The liturgical year — the place of the Annunciation in the calendar as a whole.
• How to explain the Incarnation simply? — the mystery celebrated on 25 March, presented for everyone.
• The perpetual virginity of Mary and The dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854) — two truths of faith illuminated by Luke's account.
• What is the redemptive Fiat? — Mary's fiat in the writings of Luisa Piccarreta.
• Our Lady of Loreto — the Holy House of Nazareth.
• Our Lady of Lourdes (1858) and Our Lady of Fatima — two apparitions linked to 25 March.
• Why do Catholics recite the Rosary? — the first joyful mystery.

Main sources

• Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, Typis Vaticanis, 2002: formulary of 25 March; Normae universales de anno liturgico et de calendario, nos. 5, 59, 60.
• Calendarium Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969, p. 67-68, 90, 94, 119.
• Paul VI, apostolic exhortation Marialis cultus, 2 February 1974, nos. 6, 28 and 41.
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal, nos. 53, 68, 137, 346.
• Congregation for Divine Worship, decree of 22 April 1990 (Notitiae 26, 1990, p. 160) and 2006 notification (Notitiae nos. 475-476, 2006, p. 96).
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 484-511, 1171, 2676.
• Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium, no. 56.
• Saint John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater (1987), Evangelium vitae (1995), Rosarium Virginis Mariae (2002); homilies of 25 March 1983 and 25 March 2000; audiences of 5 January 2000 and 21 March 2001.
• Benedict XVI, homily of 25 March 2006.
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, The Message of Fatima, 26 June 2000; Francis, letter to the bishops of 21 March 2022 and act of consecration of 25 March 2022.
• Liber pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, vol. I, Paris, 1886, p. 376 and 380-381.
• Martin Jugie, "Abraham d'Éphèse et ses écrits", Byzantinische Zeitschrift 22, 1913, p. 37-59; Patrologia Orientalis 16, 1922.
• Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, IV, 5, 9; De sancta virginitate, 3-4.
• Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilies in Praise of the Virgin Mother, IV, 8-9.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIIa, q. 30.
• Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, nos. 1, 243, 248.
• Luisa Piccarreta, The Book of Heaven, vol. 12; The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will, day 19.
• Thomas J. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year, New York, Pueblo, 1986.
• Arthur Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, Paris, Hachette, 1894, p. 107-108.
• Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "Feast of the Annunciation" (1907), "Angelus" (1907) and "Feast of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (1909).