How did Mary mother of Jesus get pregnant?



Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin May, celebrated by Catholics, Anglicans and some other churches on 25 March each year. In England this used to be New Year's Day until 1752. It is also called 'Lady Day'. It is an approximate pregnancy length of time from the next Christmas, when Christians celebrate Jesus' birth. Today is about the Angel Gabriel’s astonishing announcement to Mary that she was to bear a son, to be called Jesus, who would be 'great'. You can read the account in Luke 1: 26 – 38.

Today's feast gives me an excuse to share a memory of a visit my husband and I made 3 years ago to the Marienkapelle, a church in Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. We were with a small group being shown around the church by a knowledgeable and entertaining local guide. Towards the end of the tour he asked us, 'how did the Virgin Mary get pregnant?' Somebody said 'by a miracle', another said, 'by the Holy Spirit'. Although I believe those answers, my answer was 'I don't know - it's a mystery'. The guide told us that we would know the answer to his question when he'd taken us outside the north door. He was going to show us a stone carving. He promised we would never forget it. I haven't.

That 15th century stone carving above the exterior of the north door is shown in my photo at the head of this post. It symbolically depicts the mystery of how the Virgin Mary got pregnant with Jesus. It shows Mary on her knees holding an open book and the Angel Gabriel speaking to her. Above is God the Father, from whose mouth comes a tube. The bottom of the tube ends in Mary’s ear with the dove of the Holy Spirit. Sliding headfirst down the tube is a joyful baby Jesus. Because the carving is so high up from the pavement it took me a while to see the baby sliding down what reminded me of a fallopian tube, towards Mary's ear.

Like other tourists, I giggled when I saw some of the details of the carving. One or two couples muttered to each other, 'so, we've been doing it wrong all these years'. Later, when I looked at the photos on my phone, I pondered the meaningof that carved north portal. A prayerful Mary was open to receive the word that was breathed from the mouth of God. Through the Holy Spirit she heard God’s word and accepted it, although it disrupted what she had expected for her life.

Her ‘yes’ to God was to bring her great pain as well as joy. And yet, the Angel Gabriel called Mary 'blessed' and 'favoured'. Having God’s favour and blessing doesn’t mean life is easy. It certainly wasn’t for Mary. This year, 25 March falls just before Holy Week begins, when Christians remember Mary’s son’s last days and his arrest, crucifixion and burial. What a dreadful week for Mary. The angel had greeted her as ‘favoured one’, said God was with her and she was ‘blessed’. Did she feel blessed and favoured as she stood at the foot of her son’s cross through those long agonising hours? What a test of her trust in God.

We tend to look at what’s happening for us or those close to us and then say if we’re blessed or not. Trusting in God like Mary is to look beyond difficult circumstances and trust that God sees more about the circumstances than we see. Mary trusted God, even as she asked, “How can this be?” The favouring and blessing of God wasn’t around Mary in her difficult circumstances. It was within her. It was in the life of Christ she willingly nurtured within and through her body.

I believe that this coming Holy Week and Easter, God invites us to receive his blessing in our lives, even if our circumstances seem to make that unlikely. For Christians, we may receive blessing as we allow the new life of Jesus to grow within us - a life that brings hope, love, even joy. Even when we don’t see or understand it, God is with us, working to create new life in unexpected ways.

“For nothing will be impossible with God” is what the angel told Mary. Mary pondered and treasured the events she experienced as the blessed mother of the Saviour. As we approach Holy Week we can ponder and treasure God’s Word. We can be still and listen, be open and vulnerable to God’s life within our own. This is how we “let it be” according to God’s word. Who knows what blessings may come?

You can read some of my previous posts on the Feast of the Annunciation through the links below:

Image: my photo of carved north portal of Marienkapelle in Wurzburg, Bavaria

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