A Sequence for the Annunciation

One of the most widely used sequences for the feast of the Annunciation in the Middle Ages is known from its opening words as Mittit ad Virginem. It is often attributed to the famous (or infamous) scholar Peter Abelard (1079-1142), but it should be noted that the Analecta hymnica, the massive collection of medieval hymns and scholarly notes about them, makes no mention of him in its entry on this particular text. (vol. 54, pp. 296-98) In some uses, such as that of Sarum, it was not sung on the feast, since the Annunciation usually occurs in Lent (three years out of four), and it was a common custom to omit sequences altogether in Lent; at Sarum, it was used at the Advent votive Mass of the Virgin instead, which shares many of its texts, including the Gospel, with today’s feast. The Latin text with English translation is taken from Sequences from the Sarum Missal, with English Translations, by Charles Buchanan Pearson (Bell and Daldy; London, 1871. Click images to enlarge.) This recording was made by the monks of Clear Creek Abbey.

A polyphonic setting by the mighty Josquin des Prez, in two parts; the second begins at the words “Accede, nuntia.”

The Annunciation, depicted on the doors of a triptych by an anonymous French artist known as the Master of Moulins, within the last two decades of the 15th century. Many altarpieces were designed to be kept closed during Lent, and then opened back up at the Easter vigil. The outsides of the wings were very often painted with images of the Annunciation in shades of black and grey, a technique known as grisaille, since the feast usually occurs in Lent; the absence of color in the image thus did not compromise the austerity of the church’s appearance, but marked the solemnity of the feast in an appropriate manner.

The Golden Mass of Ember Wednesday

When examined as a group, the Gospels for the Masses of Advent may seem to be ordered in a rather peculiar way. They are in fact arranged chronologically backwards. On the First Sunday of Advent, the Church reads from St Luke Christ’s account of the signs that will precede His return in glory at the end of the world. (21, 25-33) This sets a theological note that will be repeated throughout the season; the first coming of Christ to redeem the world is often contrasted to the second coming, when He shall return to judge it. On the Second Sunday, John the Baptist, imprisoned by King Herod, sends his disciples to ask Christ if He is indeed the Redeemer whose coming the world has long awaited. His answer is that the signs of the first coming are already happening, as foretold in the prophets. (Matthew11, 2-10). The Gospel of the Third Sunday recounts an episode from the early days of John’s ministry, before his imprisonment. When men were moved to ask him if he was the Messiah, John confessed that he was but the Forerunner of another who stood in their midst; Christ Himself does not appear or speak in this Gospel. (John 1) The Gospel of the Fourth Sunday is the very beginning of John’s mission, St Luke speaks once again, and draws us further back in time, to the prophets who foretold not only the coming of Christ, but also that of the Forerunner. This is the only Gospel of the liturgical year in which Christ Himself makes no appearance at all. (3, 1-6) (Pictured right: St John the Baptist, from the St Bavo altarpiece by Jan van Eyck, 1430-32)

If we were to consider only the Sunday Gospels, it would almost appear that Christ is drawing away from us as we come closer to the day of His Nativity. However, this backwards motion from the end of the world to the days of the Old Testament places in even greater relief the importance of today’s Mass, the Ember Wednesday of the Advent season. On this day, the Church reads the Gospel of the Annunciation (Luke 1, 26-38), at which point, the beginning of mankind’s redemption, the story begins to move forward. On Friday, there follows the Gospel of the Visitation. (Luke 1, 39-47) In the Breviary homily of that day, St Ambrose calls to our attention the first meeting of the Word Incarnate with His Forerunner, while both are still in their mothers’ wombs; “We must consider the fact that the greater one comes to the lesser, that the lesser may be aided: Mary to Elisabeth, Christ to John.” Having announced the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Visitation, the Church then anticipates on Ember Saturday the Gospel of the followed day, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. In the three Ember Day Gospels together, therefore, God becomes Incarnate, goes to the last of His prophets, and sends him forth “to prepare His way.”

The “Missa Aurea – Golden Mass”, as it was often called, no longer enjoys the prominence which it once held; even Dom Guéranger, the founder of the original Liturgical Movement, does not include the text of the Mass in his “Liturgical Year” because it was so rarely celebrated in his time. The Breviary and Missal of St. Pius V permitted more or less any feast to impede it, but in the Middle Ages, it was very often the custom to transfer feasts away from it. This custom was partially restored (for a very brief time) by the rubrical reform of 1960.

In the traditional Roman Missal, all four sets of Ember Days have the same stations appointed at major Roman churches. On Wednesday, the station is at Saint Mary Major, on Friday at the church of the Twelve Apostles, and on Saturday at St. Peter’s Basilica. This last was originally the traditional day for ordinations in the church of Rome; the seven readings (five prophecies, Epistle and Gospel) correspond to the seven orders. The medieval liturgical writer Rupert of Tuy (1075-1129) offers this beautiful commentary on the choice of Mary Major for this day.

“On the first day of the (Ember) fast, the station is fittingly appointed at Mary Major; for it is clear that the whole office of that day, properly belongs to that temple of the Lord… in which God entire, dwelling for nine month, deigned to become man. Indeed, from the Gospel is recited the Annunciation or Incarnation of the Lord, that was proclaimed beforehand by the trumpets of the prophets, brought to be present by the Angel, received by the faith of the blessed Virgin, completed and brought forth by Her incorrupt womb.”

Rupert also notes how all of the texts of the Mass are chosen in reference to the Gospel. The Introit is the famous text Rorate caeli, from the forty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, sung in several different places in the liturgy of Advent. These words prophesy the coming of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, the belief of the Virgin, and Her reception of the Word Incarnate. The two Epistles (Isaiah 2, 2-5 and 7, 10-15), chosen for their traditional association with the Virgin Mary, “doubly refresh the souls of those who are fasting.”

In non-Roman Western rites, it was the custom to celebrate the feast of the Annunciation shortly before Christmas; the Ambrosian liturgy keeps the last Sunday of Advent as the “feast of the Incarnation”, while the Mozarabs fix the Annunciation to December 18th. In a similar vein, some churches in the Middle Ages used white vestments for the Ember Wednesday Mass instead of violet, with the deacon and subdeacon in dalmatic and tunicle, the vestments of joy, rather than the penitential folded chasubles. This manner of treating the day almost as a second feast of the Annunciation was observed at Paris, for example, well-known for its strong devotion to Our Lady; it was retained in the neo-Gallican revision of the Parisian liturgy, and continued in use until Paris adopted the Roman liturgy in 1873.

In many places, it was also the custom to sing the Gospel with special solemnity on this day. Mario Righetti notes in his Storia Liturgica that at Bayeux, the Gospel was sung by a priest (rather than a deacon) wearing a white cope, holding a palm branch in his hand. It was also a common custom to ring the Angelus bell during the singing of the Gospel.

The Annunciation, the central panel of the Mérode Altarpiece, by Robert Campin, ca 1425

In the use of Sarum, the reading of the Gospel and Homily at Matins was the subject of a particularly beautiful ritual. “The deacon proceeds with the subdeacon, (both) dressed in white,…bearing a palm from the Holy Land in his hand, with the thurifers and torch-bearers…and he incenses the altar. And so he proceeds through the middle of the Choir to the pulpit, to proclaim the Exposition of the Gospel, …with the torch-bearers standing to either side of (him), …and he holds the palm in his hand while he reads the lesson.” The Sarum Rite further underlines the festive quality of the day by omitting most of the penitential features of the Divine Office at Lauds, such as the ferial prayers and the prostrations. Some art historians believe that the dress of the Angel Gabriel as represented in paintings of the Annunciation reflects the local liturgical use observed in the celebration of the “Missa aurea.”

The Gospel of the Annunciation is not, of course, entirely absent from the traditional texts of Advent before the Mass of Ember Wednesday. It is read as the Matins lessons of the Little Office of Our Lady throughout the season, and it provides the text of many of the antiphons and responsories from the very first day of Advent. When the Church began to celebrate the daily Office and Mass of the Virgin, a special version of both was used in many places for the Advent season, and most of the texts for the Mass of the Blessed Virgin in Advent are borrowed from the “Missa aurea.” Several places retain the custom of celebrating this “Rorate” Mass early in the morning, and by candlelight if possible. King Sigmund the First of Poland loved the Rorate Mass so much that in the year 1540, he built a special Lady Chapel within the Cathedral of Krakow, in which it would be celebrated every day, regardless of the season. (pictured right, exterior view) The choristers of this chapel were called “Rorantists,” and were also responsible for singing the Gloria in excelsis at the principal Mass of the main choir. A similar custom prevails to this day at the Holy House of Loreto, in which all Masses, public and private are the votive Mass of the Annunciation.

The Most Holy Name of Mary 2025

At that time: 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. And the Angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the Angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God. Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

The Annunciation, 1430 ca., by the Florentine painter Stefano d’Antonio di Vanni (1405 ca. - 1483); in the predella, the Birth, Presentation and Dormition of the Virgin. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

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. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God. And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. (Luke 1, 26-38, the Gospel of the feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary.)

The Annunciation 2025: Dante and the Virgin Mary

The specific date of birth of the great poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is unknown, but this Thursday, March 27th, is the anniversary of his baptism, which took place during the Easter vigil of 1266. The language which we call “Italian” today originated as the dialect of his native region of Tuscany (more specifically, of the city of Florence, but with some small differences), essentially because of his best known work, The Divine Comedy, along with those of two other Tuscans, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75) and Francesco Petrarch (1304-74).

In the concluding cantos of the Divine Comedy (Paradiso 31-33), Dante is guided to the final vision of “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars” by St Bernard of Clairvaux, who at the opening of canto 33, delivers this beautiful prayer to the Virgin Mary. (Translation by Alan Mandelbaum.)

“Virgin mother, daughter of your Son,
more humble and sublime than any creature,
fixed goal decreed from all eternity,

you are the one who gave to human nature
so much nobility that its Creator
did not disdain His being made its creature.

That love whose warmth allowed this flower to bloom
within the everlasting peace—was love
rekindled in your womb; for us above,

you are the noonday torch of charity,
and there below, on earth, among the mortals,
you are a living spring of hope.

Lady, you are so high, you can so intercede,
that he who would have grace but does not seek
your aid, may long to fly but has no wings.

Your loving-kindness does not only answer
the one who asks, but it is often ready
to answer freely long before the asking.

In you compassion is, in you is pity,
in you is generosity, in you
is every goodness found in any creature.”

An illustration of the Divine Comedy by Giovanni di Paolo (1403 ca. - 1482), in a manuscript now in the British Library. At the left, Beatrice, Dante’s guide through heaven, introduces him to St Bernard, while at the right, the Angel Gabriel speaks to the Virgin Mary; below them are St Peter and St Anne. (Paradiso XXXII, 133-135; public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

In his encyclical In Praeclara Summorum, written for the 6th centenary of Dante’s birth in 1921, Pope Benedict XV beautifully sums up this passage as follows: “in this poem shines out the majesty of God One and Three, the Redemption of the human race wrought by the Word of God made Man, the supreme loving-kindness and charity of Mary, Virgin and Mother, Queen of Heaven, and lastly the glory on high of Angels, Saints and men.”

Fr Anselmo Lentini OSB (1901-89), a monk of Monte Cassino and a skilled Latinist, led the subcommittee which revised the Latin hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours. It cannot be denied that they made many questionable decisions in their collective work, not the least of which is that Lentini himself became the single most represented author in the new corpus, by a margin of four-to-one over second-place Prudentius, and almost five-to-one over third-place St Ambrose. However, one of his best ideas was to translate this text into Latin, so it could be used as a hymn for the Saturday Office of the Virgin; the first part, which is assigned to Matins, would also be highly appropriate for today’s feast. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any recording of it available, but the meter is such that it could easily be sung with same music as the traditional hymns of the Virgin Mary for Matins and Lauds, or any other music that fits the 8-syllable iambic dimeter.

Here is the Latin text, and a prose translation.

O Virgo Mater, Filia
tui beata Filii,
sublimis et humillima
præ creaturis omnibus,

Divini tu consilii
fixus ab aevo terminus,
tu decus et fastigium
naturæ nostræ maximum:

Quam sic prompsisti nobilem,
ut summus eius Conditor
in ipsa per te fieret
arte miranda conditus.

In utero virgineo
amor revixit igneus,
cuius calore germinant
flores in terra cælici.

Patri sit et Paraclito
tuoque Nato gloria,
qui veste te mirabili
circumdederunt gratiæ. Amen.

O Virgin Mother, blessed daughter of Thy Son, exalted and most humble above all creatures, Thou art the goal of the divine counsel, fixed from eternity; Thou are the glory and highest dignity of our nature, which Thou didst manifest so noble that its Maker Most High, by marvelous design, through Thee became part of it. In the virginal womb that fiery love so revived by whose heat the flowers of heaven bud forth upon the earth. To the Father and the Paraclete and to Thy Son be glory, who clothed Thee in a wondrous garment of grace. Amen.

The second part is assigned to Lauds, and concludes with the same doxology.

Quæ caritatis fulgidum
es astrum, Virgo, superis,
spei nobis mortalibus
fons vivax es et profluus.

Sic vales, celsa Domina,
in Nati cor piissimi,
ut qui fidenter postulat,
per te securus impetret.

Opem tua benignitas
non solum fert poscentibus,
sed et libenter sæpius
precantum vota prævenit.

In te misericordia,
in te magnificentia;
tu bonitatis cumulas
quicquid creata possident.

Who art the gleaming star of charity, o Virgin, for those on high; for us mortals, the living and flowing font of hope. Such power Thou hast, o exalted Lady, over the most loving heart of Thy Son that he who asks with confidence surely obtaineth through Thee. Thy kindliness bringeth aid not only to them that ask, but often and willingly comes before their prayers. In Thee are mercy and magnanimity; Thou dost heap goodness on whatever any created thing possesseth.

Perhaps the most famous painting of the Annunciation by a Tuscan artist, a fresco of Fra Angelico in the convent of San Marco, the second Dominican church of Florence, 1442. 

In Purgatory X, 34-45, Dante describes a sculpted image of the Annunciation which he sees on the first ledge, where the vice Pride is cured (again in Mandelbaum’s translation).

The angel who reached earth with the decree
of that peace which, for many years, had been
invoked with tears, the peace that opened Heaven

after long interdict, appeared before us,
his gracious action carved with such precision,
he did not seem to be a silent image.

One would have sworn that he was saying, “Ave”;
for in that scene there was the effigy
of one who turned the key that had unlocked

the highest love; and in her stance there were
impressed these words, “Ecce ancilla Dei,”
precisely like a figure stamped in wax.

Perhaps the most famous sculpture of the Annunciation by a Tuscan artist, a work of Donatello known as the Cavalcanti Annunciation, in the Franciscan church of the Holy Cross in Florence, ca. 1435. The grey sandstone known as “pietra serena” is partly gilded; originally made for the now-lost tomb of the Cavalcanti family, this is one of the artist’s very few works still in its original location.

A Meditation on Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, by Br John Paul Puschautz O.P.

This is the first of two posts featuring meditations on frescoes painted by Fra Angelico on the walls of the cells at San Marco monastery in Florence, by Br John Paul Puschautz, a Dominican of the Western Province in the United States.

The first is the Annunciation. John Paul has just completed his STL, and his thesis title was “Visio Divina with the Art of Fra Angelico as Mental Pilgrimage: A Way of Beauty and Perfection.” It is a scholarly development of a method of prayer analogous to lectio divina, but which uses sacred art for meditation rather than Scriptural passages.

If by chance any publishers read this, it strikes me that his thesis would be excellent material for a book. Certainly, I would buy it and promote it if it was published! You can contact him through opwest.org.

Thank you, Br John Paul, I learned a lot from your presentation.

Norcia’s New Sanctuary Paintings in Honor of Our Lady

Near the start of this month of Our Lady, I am very pleased to be able to share with NLM readers several photos of the new wall paintings in the church of the Monastery of San Benedetto in Norcia, Italy. As will be quickly apparent, these are only the start (but what an auspicious start!) of an ambitious iconographic program that will eventually encompass the walls on both sides of the sanctuary, radiating down toward the choir. The monks have thought very carefully about the sequence, the symbolism, and the juxtaposition of scenes.

We will introduce the seven photos as if we are walking up through the choir, toward the sanctuary. (Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Photo 1. Here we see the monks’ benches on either side, the wrought-iron candle holders, the seat of the prior, the statue of Our Lady, and the sanctuary lamp hanging at the juncture of choir and sanctuary, as if marking out the Holy of Holies.

Photo 2. We ascend the first flight of steps and take note of the Annunciation on the right side. This is one of ultimately six large panels (seven, if you include the image directly above the altar) that will decorate the entire apse. All of the marble is painted “faux marble,” a common technique throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods. On the right are the seats for the ministers at Mass, and the credence table.

Photo 3. Turning to the right, we gaze at the Annunciation.

Photo 4. In keeping with iconographic tradition, Our Lady is shown studying Scripture when St. Gabriel arrives. She demurely looks down, but interestingly her right hand is shown almost in a gesture of blessing, as if she is responding with her hand to the upraised right hand of the archangel. Gabriel wears the dalmatic of a deacon (a messenger of the good news, the Gospel), holds a lily, and genuflects. God the Father, enthroned upon the cherubim (Is 37:16), sends forth His Holy Spirit, which moves toward the Virgin’s womb for the enactment of the mystery of the Incarnation. The vegetation outside recalls the Garden of Eden; this garden is walled, for it is, in the words of the Song of Songs, a hortus conclusus or enclosed garden of unstained virginity consecrated to God.

Photo 5. Now we draw closer to the high altar, nobly dressed with its antependium. To the right, we see the Deposition of Christ; to the left, the holy death of the Virgin Mary and her (implied) Assumption; and directly above the altar, her Coronation.

Photo 6. The Deposition. Our Lady cradles the head of her dead Son; her sister holds His arm with veiled hands; Mary Magdalene bathes His feet again with her tears, a jar of ointment beside her. The crown of thorns and nails lie in the foreground. Giotto-like, three theatrical angels express their grief in contorted flight: one holds a hand over his eyes, another holds both hands to his cheeks, and a third holds his hands up. St. John stands and contemplates. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus rest to the side after their labor in taking the body down from the Cross. The splendor of the colors of all the clothing contrast sharply with the lifeless pallor of the dead Christ. Receding layers of mountains and writhing clouds suggest the ungraspable vastitude of the sacrifice that has been offered.

Photo 7. The Dormition of the Virgin Mary. She is surrounded by Apostles, some of whom are stricken with grief at the loss (as they feel it) of their spiritual mother. Christ her Son holds her soul in His hands. The body will be taken up soon thereafter. One of the Apostles, undoubtedly St Peter, wears a cope and reads a Gospel—the Gospel about “Mary hath chosen the better part.”

All the paints were executed by the Italian painter Fabrizio Diomedi, a portfolio of whose work may be viewed here and here.

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Ember Wednesday of Advent at Sarum

The Ember Wednesday of December is a particularly special day in the liturgy of Advent, since it is the day on which the Gospel of the Annunciation is traditionally read for the first time in the ecclesiastical year. (It is also read at the Votive Mass of the Virgin in Advent, the famous Rorate Mass, and is quoted repeatedly in the Divine Office.) The Use of Sarum highlighted its importance by a very lovely ceremony, one of the rare examples of a special rite being added to the celebration of Matins.

After the invitatory, hymn and psalms, when it is time to read the homily on the day’s Gospel, “the deacon proceeds with the subdeacon, (both) dressed in white,…bearing a palm from the Holy Land in his hand, with the thurifers and torch-bearers…and he incenses the altar. And so he proceeds through the middle of the choir to the pulpit, to proclaim the Exposition of the Gospel, …with the torch-bearers standing to either side of (him), …and he holds the palm in his hand while he reads the lesson.” (rubric of the Sarum Breviary) As usual, the beginning of the Gospel is read, followed by a long treatise from the Venerable Bede’s Sermon on the Annunciation, of which I here give an excerpt; the Roman Breviary traditionally gives a fairly brief passage from St Ambrose, but the English very often preferred the writings of their fellow-countryman.

Salisbury Cathedral, from the choir looking west towards the nave. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons by David Iliff. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0. Click to see the original in very high resolution.)

“Today’s reading of the holy Gospel, dearest brethren, commends to us the beginning of our redemption; it tells us that an angel was sent by God from heaven to the Virgin, to announce the new birth of the Son of God in the flesh, so that through it, we may be able to be renewed, our ancient guilt being taken away, and counted among the sons of God. Therefore, that we may merit to obtain the gifts of the promised salvation, let us take care to listen carefully to its beginning.

‘The Angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph.’ It is certainly a fit beginning for humanity’s restoration, that an Angel should be sent by God to a Virgin, who would be consecrated by the birth of God, since the first cause of humanity’s ruin was when a serpent was sent by the devil to deceive a woman in a spirit of pride. Nay rather, the devil himself came in the serpent, that he might strip the human race of the glory of immortality by the deception of our first parents. Therefore, because death entered (the world) through a woman, rightly did life also return through a woman. The former, led astray by the devil through a serpent, offered the taste of death to a man; the latter, taught by God through an Angel, brought forth the Author of our salvation to the world.

The Annunciation, from a Book of Hours according to the Use of Sarum made for Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), the mother of King Henry VII. (From the website of the British Library.)

Therefore, the Angel Gabriel was sent by God. Rarely do we read that Angels are given a name when they appear to men. But when this does happen, it is for this reason, so that from the name itself, they may make known what they are coming to do in God’s service. For Gabriel means “the might of God”, and rightly does he stand out with such a name, who bears witness to God when He is to be born in the flesh; of whom the prophet says in the Psalm, ‘the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle,’ that battle, to wit, in which He came to make war against the spiritual powers, and deliver the world from their sway.

And going in unto Her, the Angel said, ‘Hail, that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art Thou among women.’ And this greeting was as fitting to the dignity of the blessed Mary as it was unheard of in the dealings of men. For indeed she was truly full of grace, to whom it was given by divine favor that first among women, She might offer to God the most glorious gift of virginity. For this reason, She rightly merited to delight in the appearance and speech of the Angel, since She sought to imitate the angelic life. Truly was She full of grace, to whom it was given to bear Jesus Christ, through whom came grace and truth.”

The Feast of the Annunciation 2023

Truly it is fitting and just, right and profitable to salvation that we give Thee thanks always and everywhere, Lord, Holy Father, almighty and eternal God: Who through the child-bearing of the Blessed Virgin Mary didst grant to Thy church to celebrate a wondrous mystery, and a sacrament beyond telling; in Whom chastity abideth intact, honor undiminished, and constancy steadfast; Who rejoiceth that as a virgin She conceived, that in Her chaste womb she bore the Lord of heaven, that as a virgin she brought forth a Child. O the wondrous working of the divine economy! She that knew not man is both a mother, and after her Son, a virgin. For in two gifts did she delight: she wonders that as a Virgin She gave birth, and rejoices that She brought forth the redeemer of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom the Angels praise Thy majesty... (A preface for the feast of the Annunciation, found in many ancient Roman sacramentaries.)

From the Hitda Codex, ca. 1000 (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutáre, nos tibi semper et ubíque gratias ágere, Dómine, sancte Pater, omnípotens aeterne Deus: Qui per beatae Mariae Virginis partum Ecclesiae tuae tribuisti celebrare mirabile mysterium, et inenarrabile sacramentum; in qua manet intacta castitas, pudor integer, firma constantia; quae laetatur, quod virgo concepit, quod caeli Dominum castis portavit visceribus, quod virgo edidit partum. O admirandam divinae dispensationis operationem! quae virum non cognovit, et mater est, et post filium virgo est. Duobus enim gavisa est muneribus: miratur quod virgo peperit, laetatur quod redemptorem mundi edidit Jesum Christum dominum nostrum. Per quem maiestatem tuam laudant Angeli...

Lady Day

Leonardo da Vinci, Annunciation, ca. 1472

In the liturgy, the Church takes the season of Lent seriously: there are fewer saints’ feast days around this time of year, and the ones that do exist are on occasion trumped by a ferial day of Lent or at least required to include a Lenten commemoration. The daily instruction, prayer, and mortification of this holy season purify the faithful of bad habits and attachments that may have crept in during the past year and help them prepare for the great feast of Easter. And yet the Roman Rite also takes a small hiatus from this important period of preparation every March 25 to celebrate. And when that date falls either in Holy Week or Easter Week, the celebration is moved to the first Monday after the Easter Octave rather than be suppressed or accorded secondary status. For the Church cannot help but want to celebrate the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary all on its own. [1]

Significance

The feast of the Annunciation commemorates the events recorded in Luke 1, 26-38, when the archangel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she was to be the Mother of God. It is easy to see why this feast was so zealously kept. First, it marks the beginning of the end of Satan’s rule over mankind. Just as the first Eve’s no to God led to our slavery under sin, the New Eve’s yes or fiat to God opens the way to our salvation. [2] As Pope Benedict XVI put it so beautifully, the Annunciation is a veritable wedding between God and us, thanks to Mary.

This scene is perhaps the pivotal moment in the history of God’s relationship with his people. During the Old Testament, God revealed himself partially, gradually, as we all do in our personal relationships. It took time for the Chosen People to develop their relationship with God. The Covenant with Israel was like a period of courtship, a long engagement. Then came the definitive moment, the moment of marriage, the establishment of a new and everlasting covenant. As Mary stood before the Lord, she represented the whole of humanity. In the angel’s message, it was as if God made a marriage proposal to the human race. And in our name, Mary said yes. [3]

As a sidenote, the Qur’an also contains an account of the Annunciation, but it conspicuously omits any reference to Mary’s consent. That God should in some sense depend on the collaboration of a young girl for the execution of His plan to save the world is, it would appear, unthinkable in Islam: it sounds like a compromise of Allah’s almighty will. Yet the Christian Gospels exult in God’s humbling Himself, and that humility includes stooping to cooperate lovingly with His lowly creatures. As C.S. Lewis puts it in the Screwtape Letters, our God “cannot ravish. He can only woo.” [4]

Second, just as the Annunciation is a kind of wedding between God and man, it is also a kind of wedding between Mary and the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. The Mother of God is hailed as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit because on this day the power of the Holy Ghost overshadowed her. (see Luke 1, 35)

Third, Mary’s interaction with Saint Gabriel serves as a model of Christian discipleship. When the angel appears to her, she is understandably afraid: angelic visits in the Bible are often terrifying events, at least after the angel reveals himself. (see Tobias 12, 15-22) However, the Blessed Virgin quickly regains her courage and, after Gabriel tells her God’s plan for her to be the mother of the Son of the Most High, she asks him a question: “How shall this be done, because I know not man?” Mary’s cousin-in-law Saint Zechariah also asked a question when he was visited by Saint Gabriel and was told that he would be the father of Saint John the Baptist, but his question arose from doubt. “Whereby shall I know this?” he asked. “For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” (Luke 1, 18). And in punishment for his doubt, he is struck dumb for nine months. The Blessed Virgin’s question, by contrast, arises not from doubt but from a combination of trust and inquiry. I believe you, she is essentially saying, and as a result I would like to know more specifically how the plan is going to be executed. Gabriel approves of her question and rewards her with an honest answer. Mary’s inquisitiveness is a model of fides quaerens intellectum, of faith seeking understanding, and an illustration of Saint John Henry Newman’s remark that a thousand questions do not add up to a single doubt. Mary’s response to the angel’s explanation, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word,” (Luke 1, 38) is a model of obedience and faith for all Christians.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel

Fourth, the Annunciation highlights Mary’s unique rank and status in salvation history. When the angel Gabriel addresses her, he uses the Greek word Khaire (Ave in Latin), a salutation that is only used for one’s superiors. Here is an angel, a magnificent spiritual creature, speaking to a lowly fifteen year-old girl as his superior. Never does such a thing happen in the Bible, and from it comes the Catholic tradition of praising Mary as Queen of the Angels and Queen of Heaven, for if she is higher than the angels, she is their queen, and if she is queen of the angels she is Queen of Heaven. Mary herself understands the astonishing implications of this greeting, which is why “she was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.” (Luke 1, 29)

Fifth, the Annunciation is, along with Christmas, a great feast of the Incarnation. This is the day that, for the first time in history, that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity united Himself to our humanity by humbly becoming a zygote, a single eukaryotic cell, in Our Lady’s womb. This is the day that the Word first became flesh and dwelt among us, (see John 1, 14) and the place where He first chose to dwell—or to translate the original Greek more literally, to pitch His tent—was within this maiden of Nazareth, making her a holy tabernacle and a new and truer Ark of the Covenant. This is the day, as the Maronite liturgy proclaims, that “the peace of God is planted, and the heights and depths cry out: ‘O come, Lord Jesus!’ ” [5]

Holman Bible, Blowing the Trumpet at the Feast of Rosh Chodesh

Sixth, Saint Thomas Aquinas notes how the “solemnities of the Old Law are supplanted by new solemnities” in the Christian liturgical year. The Feast of the Annunciation, he argues, is a fitting replacement of the monthly feast of the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh), for it is with the Annunciation that there “appeared the first rays of the sun, i.e. Christ, by the fulness of grace.” [6] Thomas’ contrast between the new moon and the rising sun is curious, but there is another possible connection between Rosh Chodesh and the Annunciation: both celebrate woman’s fidelity to God. According to a tradition found in the Midrash, Jewish women are forbidden to engage in servile work on Rosh Chodesh because God is rewarding them for having been unwilling to give the Hebrew men in the wilderness their earrings when they realized that their men wanted to make an idolatrous image “without any power in it to deliver.” [7]

The icon of Annunciation from the Church of St Climent in Ohrid, R. o. Macedonia, 14th century

Liturgy

The Annunciation is one of the oldest festivities on the Church calendar, but it was not always primarily Marian: indeed, in the Byzantine Rite it is still considered a celebration of the Incarnation of Our Lord and one of the eight great feasts honoring Jesus Christ rather than one of the four great feasts honoring His Mother. It began in the East as early as the fourth century and migrated West, where it was known as the Feast of the Incarnation, the Beginning of Redemption, the Conception of Christ, the Annunciation of Christ, and the Lord’s Annunciation. In 656, the Council of Toledo described it as already well-established and universally observed, and in 692 the Trullan Synod (aka the Council of Constantinople in Trullo) upheld an Eastern custom when it forbade the celebration of the Eucharist during Lent except on “the Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, and the holy day of the Annunciation” (canon 52). To this day, the very strict Greek Orthodox fast permits fish during Lent on only two days: The Annunciation and Palm Sunday.

For the Roman Rite, Pope St Sergius I in 701 prescribed a penitential procession with candles for the feasts of the Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [8] Over time, however, the procession was retained only for Candlemas.

The feast appears in our second and third oldest liturgical books of the West, the eighth-century “Gelasian Sacramentary” and the ninth-century “Gregorian Sacramentary.” For centuries it was a holy day of obligation. That obligation was first lifted in France in 1802 and in the United States by the Third Council of Baltimore in 1884; it was then abrogated altogether in the 1917 Code of Canon Law.

Octaves are forbidden during Lent, but some communities observed one for the Annunciation anyway: the Dioceses of Loreto and of the Province of Venice, along with the Carmelites, Dominicans, Servites, and Redemptorists. The propers of the Annunciation in the 1962 Missal artfully combine the many reasons for rejoicing already mentioned in the section on “Significance.” The Gospel is Luke’s account of the Annunciation, while the lesson from Isaiah 7, 10-15 contains the famous prophecy: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel.” (This is repeated as the Communion Verse). The Gradual and Tract allude to God’s “wooing” of the Blessed Virgin with verses like “The King hath greatly desired thy beauty” (Ps. 44, 11), while the Paschal Alleluia celebrates the feast’s Incarnational dimension: “God hath given peace, reconciling the lowest with the highest in Himself.” The Angelic Salutation (which forms the opening of the “Hail Mary”) is the Offertory Verse, while the Introit contains the momentous verse, “My heart hath uttered a good word” (Ps. 44, 2).

Fra Angelico, Annunciation, 1437-46

The orations are also rich in meaning. While the Collect focuses on the Incarnation happening at the message of an angel, the Secret and Postcommunion connect the Annunciation to the Paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection (the Postcommunion is the prayer used at the end of the Angelus). Finally, the Magnificat Antiphon for First Vespers focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit in coming down upon Mary and overshadowing her.

A Potent Date

In the Roman and Byzantine Rites, the feast of the Annunciation has always been held on March 25. In A.D. 240, an author known only as Pseudo-Cyprian argued in his De Pascha Computus that both Our Lord’s coming and His death must have coincided with the sixth day of Creation, when Adam was created and fell. And since the world was created in springtime, Jesus Christ must have been conceived and killed shortly after the vernal equinox. Regardless of the soundness of Pseudo-Cyprian’s logic, it was widely believed by the time of Saint Augustine that Our Lord was conceived and suffered on March 25. [10] Later speculations were even more fantastic. March 25, it was opined, was the date of:

1. The fall of Lucifer
2. The creation of the world
3. The creation and fall of Adam
4. The sacrifice of Isaac
5. The crossing of the Israelites through the Red Sea
6. The conception of Our Lord
7. The crucifixion of Our Lord
8. The Last Judgment

Of all of these, the conception of Our Lord fits in best with the rest of the liturgical year. It was already believed in the fourth century that Our Lord was born on December 25, and March 25 is nine months prior. The angel Gabriel also told Mary that her cousin Saint Elizabeth had been with child for six months, and June 24 (three months later) would become the Feast of Saint John the Baptist.

Customs

For centuries, the feast of the Annunciation was a day of leisure. In 1240, a Synod in Worcester, England forbade servile work on “Lady Day,” as it was once known in England, and the universal Church was not far behind. The prohibition of servile work in the Western Church was kept from the late Middle Ages until the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. [11]

Dramatic readings and reenactments were once a part of the festivities. In some cathedrals of Europe, a “Golden Mass” would be celebrated in which deacons would chant the parts of the narrator, angel, and Mary, not unlike the chanting of the Passion narrative during Holy Week. In western Germany, churches that had a “Holy Ghost Hole” (an opening in the roof above the sanctuary through which flaming straws on Pentecost were thrown down) went one step further. A boy dressed as Saint Gabriel would be lowered through the hole and address another young actor playing Mary below. As the children in the congregation looked up in awe, their mothers would surreptitiously place cookies or candy on the pew benches, allowing them to believe that Gabriel’s heavenly companions put them there. [12]

Holy Ghost Hole of the Schanz Chapel in Ebbs, Tyrol, Austria, 18th century

Other locales preferred grand processions. In Rome near the end of the medieval period, six black horses would draw an ornately decorated carriage bearing an image of Our Lady from Saint Peter’s Basilica to Santa Maria della Minerva. The Pope then celebrated a Pontifical High Mass there and afterwards distributed fifty gold pieces each to three hundred deserving poor maidens so that they could obtain an honorable marriage (odd that he did not do this on the feast of Saint Nicholas, but it’s the thought that counts). Other parts of Europe held more modest processions in which a choirboy impersonating the Blessed Virgin would be led through the church and churchyard.

In medieval England, the proximity to the vernal equinox made the Feast of the Annunciation one of the year’s four quarter days, when servants would be hired, school terms begun, and rents due. The other three quarter days were Midsummer Day (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29), and Christmas (December 25).

Apropos of the old liturgical title “The Beginning of Redemption” and perhaps influenced by the legend that March 25 was one of the days of Creation, when Dionysius Exiguus designed the Anno Domini calendar in A.D. 525, he made the beginning of the year March 25. The Vatican curia used to treat the day as the beginning of the legal year (as opposed to the civic year on January 1). Most civil governments picked up the custom, and some—like England until 1752—retained it even after the Reformation.

The anniversary of the Blessed Mother’s new motherhood, combined with the advent of Spring, led to several local fertility customs. In central Europe farmers placed an image of the Annunciation on a barrel of seed grain and recited something like this:

O Mary, Mother, we pray to you;

Your life today with fruit was blessed:

Give us the happy promise, too,

That our harvest will be of the best.

If you protect and bless the field,

A hundredfold each grain must yield.

The next day they began planting, confident in the verse:

Saint Gabriel to Mary flies;

This is the end of snow and ice.

In Russia blessed wafers of wheat were distributed by the priest after the Divine Liturgy. The father of the house took them home and gave them to his family and servants, who received them with a deep bow and ate them in silence. Leftover “Annunciation bread” would be buried in the fields as protection against frost, hail, blight, and drought. [13]

Theodorus Vryzakis, Epanastasi, 1865

March 25 is Greek Independence Day. In 1821, at the monastery of Agia Lavra, Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the Greek flag and incited a war for independence against the Ottoman Empire. Since the bishop raised the flag in late March but no one is certain on exactly what day, the commemoration of the event was combined with the great feast of the Annunciation. March 25 is also a national holiday in Lebanon, where it is observed by both Christians and Muslims.

The Annunciation has come to take on new meaning in light of the Culture of Death. In 1993, El Salvador declared March 25 the Day of the Right to Be Born. Years later other countries followed suit: Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Paraguay, the Philippines, Honduras, Ecuador and, most recently, Puerto Rico. Pope Saint John Paul II, who was active in promoting the new observance, wrote: “I express my best wishes that the celebration of ‘The Day of the Unborn Child’ will favor a positive choice in favor of life and the development of a culture in this direction which will assure the promotion of human dignity in every situation.” [14]

Folklore

Lady Day was also a time of charming folklore. Swallows are said to return to Europe from their migration on this day, according to the Austrian rhyme:

When Gabriel does the message bring

Return the swallows, comes the Spring.

The swallows’ return on Lady Day has served them well, elevating their status in the pious mind. In Austria and Germany they are called “Mary’s birds” and in Hungary “God’s birds.” No farmer would ever kill swallows or destroy their nests out of respect for the Blessed Virgin. In central Europe a popular name for the Annunciation is “Feast of Swallows.”

Stan Shebs, Madonna lily, 2005

Others showed their piety with flowers. According to legend, the Madonna lily (Lilium candidum) first grew from the tears of Eve after her expulsion from Paradise, but it was turned white when Mary touched the lily that was being held in the angel Gabriel’s hand. (Artwork depicting the Annunciation frequently shows Gabriel holding a lily.) The Venerable Bede (673–735), a learned Benedictine monk, tells us why the Madonna lily is a fitting symbol of the Virgin:

the white petals [signify] her bodily purity, the golden anthers the glowing light of her soul.[16]

Indeed, the “lily among thorns” mentioned in the Song of Songs (2, 2) was thought by some to be the Madonna lily.

Marigolds or “Mary’s gold” are named after Our Lady because of the old legend that during the flight into Egypt a gang of robbers took Mary’s purse; when they opened it, marigolds fell out. (Perhaps as a result of this story there developed the custom of placing marigolds instead of coins around statues of Mary). Marigolds (calendula) may have also taken on a Marian association because they were in bloom during virtually all the feast days of the Blessed Virgin. Whatever the connection, the flowers were especially popular on the Feast of the Annunciation, when they would be twined into garlands and used to decorate the church.

Conclusion

“We are in the very midst of Lent, and yet the ineffable joys of Christmas are upon us!” writes Dom Guéranger. “We must spend it in joy. Whilst we adore the Son of God who humbled Himself by thus becoming Man, let us give thanks to the Father who so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son; let us give thanks to the Holy Ghost whose almighty power achieves the great mystery.” [17] And let us give thanks to Our Lady’s yes, who in one word changed the world when she agreed to bring the Word into the world.

An earlier version of this article appeared under the same time in The Latin Mass magazine 30:1 (Winter/Spring 2021), pp. 54-59. Many thanks to its editor for allowing its publication here.

Notes

[1] I say “all on its own” because the 1962 Missal also celebrates the Annunciation on the Ember Wednesday of Advent but as a preparation for Christmas.

[2] See Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 5.19.1.

[3] “On God’s Marriage Proposal,” Angelus address at the 2008 World Youth Day Closing Mass, Zenit News, July 19, 2008, http://zenit.org/article-23282?l=english.

[4] See Jacob Imam, “Not Merely Islam,” Touchstone Magazine, https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=30-03-042-f

[5] The Book of Offering to the Rite of the Antiochene Syriac Maronite Church (2012), 28. 

[6] Summa Theologiae Ia-IIae.103.3.ad 4. 

[7] Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer: The Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer the Great According to the Text of the Manuscript Belonging to Abraham Epstein of Vienna, trans. Gerald Friedlander (Hermon Press, 1965), 53-54.

[8] Francis X. Weiser, S.J., Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs (Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1958), 207.

[9] Frederick Holweck, “The Feast of the Annunciation,” Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01542a.htm

[10] See On the Trinity 4.5.9.

[11] See Weiser, 301-2.

[12] Weiser, 303.

[13] Weiser, 304.

[14] “The Day of the Unborn Child,” vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cevang/p_missionary_works/infantia/documents/rc_ic_infantia_doc_20090324_boletin7p14_en.html

[15] See Weiser, 302-3.

[16] See Vincenzina Krymow, Mary’s Flowers (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 1999), 28.

[17] The Liturgical Year, vol. 5, trans. Laurence Shepherd (Saint Bonaventure Publications, 200), 454.

Ordinariate Mass of the Annunciation in Louisville

On Saturday, March 25th, beginning at 12:00pm, Our Lady and St John Catholic Church, the Ordinariate Parish in Louisville, Kentucky, will celebrate the solemnity of the Annunciation at St Martin of Tours Parish, located in downtown Louisville at 639 South Shelby Street. Music will include Bethlehem Down by Peter Warlock, Adam Lay Y’Bounden by Boris Ord, and the Missa L’Hora Passa by Ludovico da Viadana.

Laetare Sunday Photopost 2022

Once again, our thanks to everyone who sent in these pictures; along with the rose vestments used on Laetare Sunday, we have a few pictures of the feasts of St Joseph and the Annunciation as well. Our next photopost series will be of Passiontide veils, so a reminder will be posted tomorrow. Keep up the good work of evangelizing through beauty.

Church of St Anne – Vilnius, Lithuania

A private chapel

St Dominic’s Church and Shrine of the Holy Rosary – London, England

Our own Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., celebrating the Dominican Rite on a beautiful sunny day.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

More Paintings of Old Testament Events that Point to The Annunciation

The feast of the Annunciation was on March 25th and so we are within its octave, although this is not celebrated liturgically. Octaves are periods that extend the period of our meditation upon on the meaning of an event over a whole, so, as with last week’s post in anticipation, I will highlight some paintings that illustrate how this moment in history touches all of Salvation History in some way.

First, here is a painting of the Annunciation by a Dutch or Flemish painter called Matthias Stom, known for his work painted when he lived in Italy in the 17th century, and was much influenced by Caravaggio. This is less of a narrative-style composition in which many connected events in the story orbit the central moment, the engagement of Mary by the Archangel; instead, this one focuses almost exclusively on the moment of the Annunciation itself, and portrays Mary’s response psychologically through a beautifully rendered expression.

The work is evocative of paintings by a Frenchman of the same period, Georges de la Tours, in which the central point is the Light, signified by a candle in the dark.

From Byzantine Small Vespers on the eve of the feast:

“Why does your form blaze with fire?” said she whom we venerate to Gabriel in her amazement. “What is your rank and what the value of your words? You announce to me that I shall bring forth a child, het I have no experience of man. Lead me not astray, O man, with crafty words, as the crafty serpent once led astray Eve our mother.”

And earlier, from the same Office:

“Your words are as strange as your appearance! Strange is the news which your words announce to me!” said Mary to the Angel. “Do not seek to deceive me. I am a virgin, and I know not marriage; yet you tell me that I am to conceive the One whom no spirit can even comprehend! How can I contain within my womb Him whom the immense heavens themselves cannot contain?” “O Virgin, learn the lesson of the tent of Abraham, which once welcomed the Trinity. This prefigured your womb that would receive God!”

Above we see a painting from the studio of Rembrandt which depicts the Hospitality of Abraham, which is, coincidentally as far as I am aware, compositionally similar to that of Strom. 

Elsewhere among the hymns of the feast, Mary is described as the Ladder and the Gate, which leads to heaven. A path made possible for us by the Annunciation. 

The Holy Scriptures speak of you mystically, O Mother of the Most High. For Jacob saw in days of old the ladder that prefigured you and said: “This is the stair on which God will tread!” Therefore, as is meet, you hear the salutation: “Hail, O full of grace, the Lord is with you!”

The Dream of Jacob, by Ferdinand Bol, Dutch, 17th century. 

Finally, here is a hymn in the form of a litany, from Great Vespers on the eve which reveals many such types:

Gabriel came to you, O Maiden and disclosed God’s plan which was from all eternity. He joyfully offered you his greetings and cried out: “Hail, O land without human seed! Hail, O bush untouched by fire! Hail, O depth not human eye can fathom! Hail, O bridge that leads up to heaven! Hail, O fleece receiving the heavenly manna! Hail, O dissolution the curse! Hail, O Maiden who returned Adam to grace! The Lord is with you.”

A Modern French Painter in Love with Our Lady: Maurice Denis’ Remarkable Annunciation Paintings

Annunciation (1912)

Until a couple of years ago I had never heard of the painter Maurice Denis (1870–1943). The beautiful autobiography of the painter and, later, Benedictine monk Jan Verkade (Dom Willibrord, 1868–1946) introduced me to him. Here is a brief description from The Art Story website:

Maurice Denis is perhaps unique amongst avant-garde French painters of the late-nineteenth century in combining a strong commitment to formal and stylistic innovation with an equally profound sense of the significance of tradition: in art, culture, and, perhaps above all else, religion. His boldly colored, vibrant paintings, like those of the artists with whom he is generally grouped together - Paul Sérusier, Pierre Bonnard - express a commitment to abstraction, and to relaying the inner life of the soul, which is, at one level, quintessentially modern. But unlike his peers, the soul which Denis sought to express was integrally shaped by his religious faith which can already be sensed from his earliest paintings as a member of the Nabi group which he co-founded in 1888, and which would lead him, later in life, to activities such as church renovation and altarpiece design. By the end of his life, Denis was also renowned as an art critic, having produced a series of influential essays on aesthetics and spirituality.

There is much one could say about his life and art, so thoroughly integrated with his Catholic faith and with a happy marriage and family—such unusual traits, it sadly seems, in the annals of famous artists. As another website, Sacred Art Pilgrim, explains:

There is a feeling of great intimacy in Denis’ religious art. A devoted husband and father, the artist often used his beloved first wife, Marthe, and their six children as models, placing sacred figures in settings from his daily life in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Breton seacoast, where the family spent their summers, or an Italian villa they had visited in Fiesole, near Florence. Denis was especially drawn to maternal images of the Virgin Mary, making paintings and prints of the Annunciation and the Madonna and Child in multiple variations… French Dominican Friar Marie-Alain Couturier, a onetime student and leading proponent of Modernist sacred art, offered what is, perhaps, the most fitting epithet for his former mentor. Denis was, in his words, the painter of “the sweet presence of God in our life.”

Today, in honor of the great Marian feast we are celebrating, I wish to share a few of the vast number of strikingly original depictions of the Annunciation that Denis painted over his fruitful career. He seems to have had a particular fascination for this biblical subject over all the decades of his output. The titles are linked to the online sources from which the images were taken. (N.B.: If anyone has access to better images, please send them to me by email so that I can swap them in.)

May this gallery be like a bouquet of flowers to the Blessed Virgin Mary on Lady Day.

In the first image, we see a theme to which Denis will return again and again: the depiction of the Archangel Gabriel as a deacon bearing a book, almost as if Our Lady is the priest at Solemn Mass to whom the book is carried for her to kiss. In this very early depiction, painted when the artist was 19, he has even included a couple of acolytes bearing tapers.

Le mystère catholique (1889)

We see something similar in this depiction from ca. 1914, except that here the deacon-angel bows his head and raises his arms in a gesture of homage, while Our Lady bows her head in a reciprocal greeting. She is dressed as a bride.

Annunciation at Assisi (c. 1914)

As mentioned above, Denis loved Fiesole, where Fra Angelico used to live, and painted many religious paintings there. St Gabriel is looking especially diaconal in this 1919 depiction. Once again the Virgin is dressed in white as a bride, and the Holy Ghost is imaged as a dove with rays from the upper right corner stretching to Mary’s womb.

Anunciación en Fiesole (1919)

In another version, Denis switches the roles, and has the Virgin kneeling near vessels (of water? wine? an allusion to the Cana yet to come?), on a rug, while the angel stands monumentally above her with hands outstretched in a priestly gesture.

Annonciation à Nazareth (1929)

In the very different medium of a monochrome lithograph, Denis has the angel kneeling but with the same outspread hand gesture, while Our Lady stands with serenity, almost looking beyond the scene at a future vista. Is it meant to capture the moment before she is fully aware of her visitor?

The Annunciation (no date given)

Denis’ love of the Italian landscape around Fiesole was such that it sometimes becomes the main subject of the painting. Perhaps he is attempting to set the great mystery against everyday surroundings, to emphasize the penetration of the divine into the human and natural? Our Lady herself, it seems, was engaged in some menial task such as watering or cutting flowers...

The Annunciation in Fiesole (no date given)

One of my favorites is a depiction in which we see the familiar deacon-archangel holding a Gospel book, accompanied by the candlebearing acolytes, approaching the Blessed Virgin on what appears to be a rooftop terrace, with the sun streaming behind her (which is somewhat unconventional; usually the beam of light comes across the scene from the other direction). The sublimity of the setting and its vertiginous perspective hint at the lofty grandeur of the miraculous conception. (How I wish I could find a better graphic than this!)

The Annunciation at Fiesole (no date given)

Here is a Denis looking more fauvist and cubist than usual. For whatever reason he has decided to give Gabriel a chasuble this time rather than a dalmatic, and no book, but something more like a priestly orans gesture. The servers, too, do not bear candles, but simply walk ahead. The haloes are more pronounced.

Annunciation at the Window in Prayer (no date given)

The whole series thus far have been landscape-oriented; here we have an unusual portrait-oriented setting, which allows for ample attention to the wonderful arches and their almost Boethian musical-ratio relationships. The plants exercise a prominent role, with one growing on top of the wall, the potted lily, another flower pot at the front right, and, most strikingly, the “burning bush” directly behind Our Lady. St. Gabriel here is almost timid, afraid to disturb the Virgin’s reverie.

The Annunciation under the Arch with Lilies (no date given)

The tenth and last that I found online seems to be only a portion of a larger whole that I have not had success in locating.

It is usually my colleague David Clayton who provides us with in-depth analysis of modern sacred art (and I hope he will enjoy this post!), but my concluding thought is simply this: if Maurice Denis could return again and again to a great mystery of the Christian Faith and find inexhaustible inspiration and joy in looking at it from every angle his imagination suggested, why cannot our artists today do the same? No subjects for painting can be greater, richer, nobler, more evocative, dynamic, or rewarding. May God grant us more painters like this, through the prayers of His most holy Mother.