Celebrating the Annunciation and Incarnation

The Importance of the Solemnity of the Annunciation/Incarnation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church  

“The coming of God’s Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the ‘First Covenant.’ ”    (CCC)    522 

The Incarnation is the turning point in all of human history (BC to AD). 

This Solemnity offers the Church a rich and powerful means of evangelization.  However, in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite the Christological feasts of Lent and Easter “out rank” this “Marian” feast.  And so the Solemnity of the Annunciation is always pushed to a weekday celebration. (For example see calendar for 2007 AD.)  And this is sad when we consider that only a few Catholics attend daily Mass.  The Annunciation/Incarnation is intrinsically tied to Good Friday and to the ultimate feast of Easter.  Christ could not have risen if He hadn’t died, and He couldn’t have died unless He had been Incarnated into a body.

·  AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Pope John Paul II

“The mystery of the Incarnation constitutes the climax of this giving, this divine self-communication.
The conception and birth of Jesus Christ are in fact the greatest work accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the history of creation and salvation: the supreme grace "the grace of union," source of every other grace, as St. Thomas explains.²⁰⁰ The great Jubilee refers to this work and also-if we penetrate its depths-to the author of this work, to the person of the Holy Spirit.”  (The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World, [#50]) 

Pope Benedict XVI

The coming of the Messiah, foretold by the Prophets, is qualitatively the most important event of all history, on which it confers its ultimate and full meaning. It is not historical and political coordinates that condition God's choice, but on the contrary, the event of the Incarnation that “fills” history with value and meaning.  (Homily of December 31, 2006)

Placing this all important Solemnity in a role of Sunday prominence in our sacred liturgical calendar would have numerous benefits. 

Only during the Solemnities of Christmas and the Annunciation does the Church call us to worship God with a genuflection when we profess the creed ( at the words “and by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became Man.”) 

The Paschal Mystery requires that God become a Man.  A person might suppose that God could have come into our physical world without being born, since He could have come as a fully grown man.  And so, Christmas is not inherently essential to our having the most important feasts of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  However, the Incarnation -  in some form - is indispensable and is therefore more important than Christmas. 

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