Feast of the Annunciation

March 23, 2025

This week on Tuesday the 25th, we will be celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation, which means it is 9 months until Christmas. It is a very important feast in particular because it announced the official beginning of the Redemptive work of Christ. That He was taking on our human nature and by the power of the Holy Spirit would be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It is quite a mystery to contemplate the fact that for thousands of years untold numbers of people waited for that moment and did all sorts of good and holy deeds to help prepare the way for it. Going all the way back to Adam and Eve, the Holy Trinity had been preparing mankind and the world for this very miracle. We are all familiar with the scene from the Gospel when the Archangel Gabriel enters into the home of Mary and reveals that God has a special part for her in the beginning of human salvation. First, he greets the Immaculate Conception by using the phrase “Hail, full of grace” and goes on to announce to her this great grace God has placed before her. Mary in her free will and her deep humility responds with “may it be done unto me according to thy word”. And the rest is literal history. This calls to mind two particular prayers that for centuries and centuries Catholics have been praying – the Hail Mary and the Angelus. After the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Angelus are two of the most scriptural based prayers. The majority of the words come from that very scene in Scripture of the annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel. That is one of the reasons why it is so senseless that so many protestant denominations despise these prayers as being “non-scriptural” when these prayers are more scriptural than the majority of the prayers they use.

The Hail Mary we are all very familiar with and we should say many of them daily, within the context of the rosary but also one or two or three when we are praying for something or someone and need to say some “quick” prayers that we can easily call to mind. The Angelus on the other hand has been pretty much forgotten it seems in many places. That is a real shame for many reasons, especially when you consider that the primary function of church bells was to announce the beginning and end of services and the hours during the day for praying the Angelus. Hence the old phrase that the “bells were tolling the Angelus”. The Angelus is typically prayed three times a day, at 6 am, 12 noon and 6 pm. It can be traced back to at least the 11th century when Italian monks would say three Hail Mary’s after their evening prayer. We know for instance, that St. Anthony of Padua prayed this and recommend others to do so also. The three Hail Mary’s were the original form of the Angelus. By the 14th century the practice of saying the 3 Hail Mary Angelus in the evening around 6 pm had spread all over Europe. And thereafter the tradition first of praying it in the morning before work began – usually around the 6 am time and then it also began to be said around noon in connection with the middle of the day and eventually the break for a meal or a rest and at 6pm. The current form of the Angelus was set around the 16th century. The prayer of the Angelus features 3 antiphons and three Hail Mary’s followed by a closing antiphon and prayer. The leader usually prays the first part and the others present respond with the second part.

The Angelus

The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary: And she conceived of the Holy Spirit.

Hail Mary, Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word.

Hail Mary...

And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary...

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:

Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

The Angelus is a beautiful prayer we can all try and make a habit of saying every day. All we have to do is glance at the clock to remind us at those three particular times of the day to pray this prayer in honor of the Incarnation of Christ and the humility of the Blessed Mother. Since we have a 12:10 Mass at Holy Family on Tuesdays, we are going to start praying the Angelus before Mass as a special way to prepare to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice.

God love you, Fr. Anthony