“How can this be?”: a homily for The Annunciation

From the vault, here’s part of a homily from Advent in 2008, with some thoughts on the feast we celebrate on March 25:

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How many of us have been blindsided by events we never expected – a twist on  life’s path that we never saw coming, for better or for worse — and asked  ourselves, in fury or despair or bewilderment:

How can this be?

And here Mary is told, simply:

“Nothing is impossible with God.”

And that is enough.

That is all she needs to hear.  She will accept God’s will and she will  carry it out.

It’s – in every sense – extraordinary.  How is it that someone so young can  so easily say “Yes” to what will undoubtedly be difficult, and painful, and  maybe even scandalous? The very idea of it is a shock.  It goes against our  culture.

We live in an age when it’s so easy to say “No.” We can make life what we  want it to be – even if that’s not what it should be.

You can fight aging with botox, avoid dieting with liposuction.  You can  make a baby in a Petri dish. You can get a mortgage for an overpriced house with  a three-car garage that you can’t afford.    And, if it all becomes too  stressful, society tells us that you can get rid of anything that’s just  inconvenient – even an unborn child.

But Mary didn’t.  Mary wouldn’t.   She listened to another voice.  The voice  of an angel.  When Mary asked the question the world asks so often of God – “How  can this be? “— the answer ignited in her a fire.  The fire of the Holy Spirit,  the fire of possibility.

The answer is this: it can be because God wills it to be.  Nothing is  impossible with God.

How often we forget that.  How often we disbelieve it, or mistrust it.

But the lesson of The Annunciation is so clear.

Mary, we’re told, was troubled at what she heard.  But what  follows is a message for all of us.  In our moments of confusion, when we are  troubled by what God brings to us…nothing is impossible.

Angels will speak.  The Spirit will come.  A light will break through the  skies and guide the world to a savior in a stable.

How can this be?

It can…because nothing is impossible with God.

…Mary is challenged.  And so are we.  The  gospel asks us to look deeply at the unexpected, and the miraculous, and the  mysterious.

It asks us to consider possibility.  And it asks us to look into our own  hearts.

How do we respond to the Gabriels in our own lives?

How do we react when God suddenly knocks on our door to announce a change in  plans?

When the doctor calls…

When the market fails…

When a child becomes ill…or a parent is bedridden…or the pregnancy results  aren’t what you thought they’d be…or wanted them to be.

We may find ourselves brought up short by life.  We may feel disappointment,  confusion, maybe even anger.  And we may ask those words that Mary asked so long  ago, “How can this be?”

How will I get through it?  How will I manage?

The answer is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago.

And that is what we cling to.

It is possible.

Because nothing is impossible with God.

– From a 2008 Advent homily on The Annunciation, which we celebrate today.

Image: Annunciation Coloring Page from Crusade by the Maryknoll Sisters, 1955.

I just love how Gabriel is wearing a dalmatic.