Like Mother, like Us

IC XC
✙
NI KA

In the course of Advent we hear the reading of the Annunciation a couple of times between Mass and the Office, including daily readings, it’s come up 3 or 4 times in the last 3 weeks. additionally, this same Gospel pericope, as it is called “in the business”, is read several times a year: we can be too used to it. We hear “the Angel comes to Mary” and then we tune out. We know this. We’re used to the Angelic Salutation – aka the Hail Mary – saying “full of Grace” and we rarely think of it. It’s something rather like the Our Father, it rattles off automatically. But what exactly is “full of Grace”?

In the Greek text for Luke 1:28 we read the word κεχαριτωμένη keKHaritoMEne. It’s a passive verb. Mary is, passively, full of Grace. This is nothing she has done, this is done to her. This is exactly in keeping with the doctrine of the immaculate conception: Mary is preserved (by grace) from any stain of sin or corruption. We say that God gave her the benefits of Christ’s redemption before the fact. And, this is nothing out of the ordinary except that she was living in conscious knowledge of this reality. All the saints of the scriptures (and those unknown to us) were saved by Christ’s redemption. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). There is no merit at all in mankind and all we have from God is his grace given to us in Christ. Mary receives this from him even before her conception by the Holy Spirit. That way her act of consent could be one fully and freely given, unhindered by human weakness or pride.

What is curious, however, is that this same Greek word is used only one other time in the New Testament: Ephesians 1:6 and there it is an active verb: it is something God has done to us. We sing this verse weekly as a part of Vespers in the Daily Office:

Praised be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has bestowed on us in Christ
every spiritual blessing in the heavens.

God chose us in him
before the world began
to be holy
and blameless in his sight.

He predestined us
to be his adopted sons through Jesus Christ,
such was his will and pleasure,
that all might praise the glorious favor
he has bestowed on us in his beloved.

In him and through his blood, we have been redeemed,
and our sins forgiven,
so immeasurably generous
is God’s favor to us.

God has given us the wisdom
to understand fully the mystery,
the plan he was pleased
to decree in Christ.

A plan to be carried out
in Christ, in the fullness of time,
to bring all things into one in him,
in the heavens and on earth.

– Liturgy of the Hours

What the Angel says to Mary, “Full of Grace” God has “freely bestowed” on us in this translation. This is the grace of redemption in Jesus, of the forgiveness of our sins. This is exactly that the church teaches in the Doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception: in Baptism, we receive exactly what Mary has been given at birth – the grace of redemption and forgiveness. This is bestowed freely, without possibility (or need) for recompense: how can the finite repay infinity? God made Mary “full of Grace” in her conception. He has freely bestowed this on us in Baptism. The only difference is that we stand in need of continual participation because of the weakness of human sin. We need to actively dance with God. We cannot rest. For in the spiritual life, to stand still is to fall back, to fail.

All fo his becomes possible in the Incarnation, in the feast we are preparing to celebrate: for what Mary was given in her conception we can now receive in every act of God in our lives for everything we do is (potentially) an act of God, a sacrament, a holy mystery. God was a noisy baby in Synagogue. God was a hungry child at breakfast. God was a sweaty teenager dealing with acne. God would have been shy that first time there was a beautiful girl in the room. God helped his mom cook. God helped his father chop wood. God went to the bathroom – by digging a hole and using his hands to cleanse himself. God cooked over a fire. God shared BBQ with his friends. Godslept on the ground. God cried. God mourned. God is one of us.

And everything is full of Grace.