![o{]:�)](http://www.wdtprs.com/blog/wp-images/topimage.JPG)
WDTPRS: Annunciation - Lady Day
This is the very Feast of the Incarnation.
Today we celebrate that moment when our Lord elevated our humanity by taking our human nature into an indestructible bond with His Divinity. In the Incarnation God opened for us the path to "divinization", His sharing of something of His own divine glory with us in the eternal happiness of heaven.
In the sin of our First Parents, offending God and loosing so many of our gifts, the whole human race sinned. In justice a human being had to correct the offense, but such a correction was entirely impossible for a mere mortal human. Such a correction required the intervention of one who was both man and God.
In the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, made man, made Jesus the Lord and Savior, not only begins to save us from our sins in His earthly ministry, but begins also the mysterious revelation of man more fully to himself (cf. GS 22).
Part of the Lord’s mission was also to teach man more fully who He is in the beauty of His own Person. However, He did not begin to do this only from the beginning of His public ministry. He began this from the very moment of the Incarnation.
Remember: From the instant of His conception, the Word made flesh begins to teach man more fully who man is.
Light from Light sheds light on the dignity of man, God’s image, from the instant of conception, from man’s humblest beginning.
Here are the Collects for this beautiful Feast of the Annunciation, Lady Day. Here are the "Opening Prayers" from both the older, traditional, extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and the newer, post-Conciliar, ordinary form.
You might discuss their differences, their respective strengths.
COLLECT (1962MR):
Deus, qui de beatae Mariae Virginis utero Verbum tuum,
Angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti:
praesta supplicibus tuis;
ut, qui vere eam Genetricem Dei credimus,
eius apud te intercessionibus adiuvemur.
LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who desired Your Word to take flesh from the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary
the angel announcing it:
grant to your supplicants;
that we who believe truly in the Mother of God,
may be helped in Your sight by her intercessions.
COLLECT (2002MR):
Deus, qui Verbum tuum in utero Virginis Mariae
veritatem carnis humanae suscipere voluisti,
concede, quaesumus,
ut, qui Redemptorem nostrum
Deum et hominem confitemur,
ipsius etiam divinae naturae mereamur esse consortes.
LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who wanted Your Word to take up
the truth of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
grant, we beseech,
that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man,
may also merit to be the sharers of His divine nature.
This is of new composition, though there is a reference here to Letter 123 Ad Eudociam Augustam – "De monachis Palaestinis" of St. Pope Leo I, "the Great" (+461).
"Fides enim catholica sicut damnat Nestorum, qui in uno domino nostro Iesu Christo duas ausus est praedicare personas, ita damnat etiam Eutychen cum Dioscoro, qui ab unigenito Deo Verbo negant in utero Virginis matris veritatem carnis humanae susceptam."
Is this feast no longer considered a Holy Day of Obligation in the US? In the Diocese of Columbus it was not recognized as such.
Comment by Frank H — 25 March 2009 @ 12:59 pmMy wife and I were wondering the same thing.
Comment by Jeffrey — 25 March 2009 @ 1:04 pmMore honorable than the cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, without stain thou gavest birth to God the Word: True Theotokos, we magnify thee!
Comment by rightwingprof — 25 March 2009 @ 1:10 pmIt is not a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S.
http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/q&a/general/obligation.shtml
But, was it ever?
James
Comment by James Straight — 25 March 2009 @ 1:13 pmI don’t believe it was ever a Holy Day of Obligation.
I pray the Liturgy of the Hours and today is always an interesting day… Lent is suddenly “on-hold” as we focus on the Incarnation!
Comment by Geoffrey — 25 March 2009 @ 1:40 pmHappy Feast Day, Father!
Comment by Argent — 25 March 2009 @ 1:47 pmThe E.F. prayer refers to the communion of saints (which is less emphasized in the O.F. than in the E.F.). The opening clause hinges upon the confession that the Son of God took real human flesh; the closing clause hinges upon the confession of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mother of God.
The O.F. prayer accomplishes these same goals but focuses more exactly on Jesus (the “Redeemer [who is] God and man”) and not really on the Blessed Virgin Mary. The closing clause links to the prayer for the mingling of the water and wine, which I find laudable: since we believe Jesus—who is God—shared our human nature for our redemption, we—who are men—hope to share in his divine nature.
Bottom line: E.F. prayer is more Mary-oriented, O.F. prayer is more Jesus-oriented.
Comment by Jeff Pinyan — 25 March 2009 @ 2:01 pmThe Annunciation has never been a Holy Day of Obligation. It is, however, a first class Feast. St. Stephen’s in Sacramento will have a High Mass this evening. The choir will be singing one of my favorite Gregorian Masses, “In Jubilo.” The congregation in our parish is privileged to sing the Masses antiphonally. Those who do, for the most part, know the Masses by heart. Interesting that the Feast of St. Gabriel Archangel is March 24.
Comment by Gloria — 25 March 2009 @ 2:27 pmIt was until the Third Council of Baltimore in 1884.
Comment by James the Less — 25 March 2009 @ 2:45 pmFor once I actually prefer the OF as it is more Jesus orientated.
Comment by Becz — 25 March 2009 @ 4:06 pmSorry, James the Lesser. I didn’t research far enough. My 1945 St. Andrew’s Missal had Holy Days all over the world and I didn’t find it, so (shame on me) “assumed.” And OOPS! I meant CUM Jubilo. I’m really getting careless. Tsk!
Comment by Gloria — 25 March 2009 @ 5:32 pmSo… not much interest in what the prayers really say.
Comment by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf — 25 March 2009 @ 8:02 pmnice comment Rightwingprof… I love the akathists of the thoetokos.
Comment by the_crescat — 25 March 2009 @ 8:57 pmbtw… got tons of art for today’s feast.
The Solemnity of the Annunciation is one of my favorites on the Church calendar. If it were up to me it would be a Holy Day of Obligation – but it isn’t. Occasionally, Holy Friday conflicts with the Annunciation – wouldn’t it make sense for Easter to be the second Sunday in April and leave it at that?
Think about it – this is the day in which we commemorate the Word made flesh, when Maria’s fiat, her willingness to do God’s will brought the Messiah to all of us. Since God chose to enter time, nothing else could take place – no the birth of Christ, not His ministry, not his death and resurrection – could take place without the Incarnation.
Luke 1:26-38 is my favorite Gospel passage.
I save my Catholic Christmas hymns CD in my car just to play a few each March 25th before putting it away until December.
Comment by Joe — 25 March 2009 @ 9:40 pmO.K. This is late, but I like the 1962 MR literal translation better. I know that the more recent one emphasizes the Incarnation rather than the Blessed Virgin, but the modern Church has diminished Our Lady too much for my taste. At Mass this evening, the celebrant’s homily stressed that this is perhaps the greatest Feast Day of the Church – the Incarnation, God’s deigning to take on our human nature, and the Virgin Mary’s becoming Mother of God, a real double whammy, really (my words). It brings home Mary’s important and necessary role in our salvation. God could have chosen any means to bring that about. He chose instead to come into the world a helpless babe, to feel cold, heat, pain, eat, sleep, take on all that is human. It also makes clear that at CONCEPTION, God became man. I also like the flow and poetic feeling to the English translation in my 1962 Hand Missal.
O God, Who didst will that Thy Word should take flesh, at the message of an Angel, in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, grant to Thy suppliant people, that we who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her intercession with Thee…..
Comment by Gloria — 26 March 2009 @ 1:44 amThe main difference is in the petitions.
(1962 version) grant to your supplicants; that we who believe truly in the Mother of God, may be helped in Your sight by her intercessions
In the 1962 version we acknowledge our humble status as “supplicants” who need two kinds of help—from Mary, whom we ask to intecede for us—and from Jesus. It puts us in what I think is our proper place in relationship to Mary’s ineffable sanctity and Christ’s transcendent divinity.
(2003 version) we beseech, that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man, may also merit to be the sharers of His divine nature.
This strikes me as being solipsistic and rather presumptuous. Here, we are asking, essentially, to share in Christ’s divinity and we do so through “merit” and the confession of faith. Is that really what Catholics are supposed to believe, that we somehow, someday will become not just God-like, but actually become divine in sort of an inverse process of incarnation? I must confess to confusion.
Comment by rcesq — 26 March 2009 @ 2:06 amI like the older Collect better.
I’ve been saying the Little Office of Our Lady this Lent. And I’ve been saying it half in English, half in Latin.
Happy ‘belated’ Feast day, Father Z!
Comment by irishgirl — 26 March 2009 @ 9:48 amrcesq,
Respectfully, this is the tradition of the Church and the constant refrain of the Fathers and Doctors: “God became man so that man might become God.” Aquinas hedges a little and says “so that man might become gods.” II Peter 1:4 speaks of becoming “partakers of the Divine Nature.” This doctrine of ‘divinization’ has been a bit obscured in the West of late, but the Catechism is clear: cf. CCC#460 (the footnotes are helpful).
To be sure, we do not become God or gods in the most absolute or strict sense. However, God pours out His inner life into us, not only in our perfected state in Heaven, but even here on earth in the form of sanctifying grace, and the indwelling of the Trinity in our souls.
God bless.
Comment by dkwatchman — 26 March 2009 @ 12:24 pm“God became man so that man might become God.”
Theosis, in Eastern theology.
Comment by rightwingprof — 26 March 2009 @ 2:59 pm