Did you miss it? I mostly did, because its full significance was not known to me.
I’m referring to March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, a date so packed with meaning that I find it staggering. But I didn’t have a full appreciation of it until very recently.
More than a month ago I read an article by our local Ordinary, praising the book Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World, by Sally Read (Ignatius Press 2019). It’s not often that a successor to the Apostles writes an extended commentary on a new book, and he had my attention. Read is a poet, nurse, and one-time atheist whose conversion story is told in the memoir Night’s Bright Darkness (Ignatius Press 2016). Her prose is lyrical (as befits a poet) and not unlike that of the late British mystic Caryll Houselander (The Reed of God). Annunciation is an extended love-letter to Read’s young daughter; as it unfolds it unpacks the spiritual treasures of the encounter between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel, detailed in Luke 1:26-38. As Read writes, “The Annunciation is an invitation to a deeper relationship with God for each and every one of us.” Her book, which I have almost finished, is a winsome companion along the path toward that deeper relationship.
I set Annunciation aside for a few weeks. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic confined us to our homes, leading to a quiet and isolated celebration of the Solemnity of the Annunciation on March 25. I confess that the celebration did not make a tremendous impact on me at the time. Still, this site launched the following day, and its first two posts were informed by the Annunciation.
Over the weekend, I belatedly encountered an article about Italy’s celebration of the first-ever “Dante Day” — March 25. According to the article, this date is neither the date of the poet’s birth, nor that of his death. Rather, it is the date the poet enters Hell in Inferno : Good Friday.
Good Friday? I thought March 25 was the Annunciation? Clearly, there is much about this date to unpack. According to the National Catholic Register, citing The Spirit of the Liturgy, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI):
- Jewish tradition held March 25 to be the date of Abraham’s sacrifice;
- March 25 was also regarded as the date of creation (as in, “Let there be light”);
- Because early Christians followed Jewish tradition, they also found it “fitting” that March 25 should be observed as the date of Christ’s conception, and subsequently observed also as the date of His crucifixion.
Read the whole article here: https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/italy-marks-first-dante-day-under-coronavirus-lockdown
I have also learned that we needn’t reach all the way back to 14th century Italy for a literary appreciation of March 25. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, what many regard as the greatest work of fiction of the 20th century, and a work deeply informed by the author’s Catholic faith, J.R.R. Tolkien tells us in an appendix that on March 25, “Gollum seizes the Ring and falls in the Cracks of Doom. [This date also sees the] Downfall of Barad-dûr and passing of Sauron.” Thus does good triumph over evil, and Middle Earth is saved.
One final note: For those of you who use the Magnificat devotional magazine, you will see that today’s saint (the daily “Saint Who?” feature) is Saint Dismas, “The Good Thief” (Lk. 23:39-43), whose feast day is . . . March 25.