Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you for you have found favor with God. Today our Gospel passage recounts the visiting of Mary by the angel Gabriel. Six months after a similar mission that took the angel Gabriel to the household of Zechariah, he finds himself in Mary’s house. And just like six months before, Gabriel comes as a bearer of some good news. It is good news that startles even the the intended recipient. How could she- a mere teenager and almost without status - have possibly found favor in the eyes of God? She was as ordinary as any other girl of her age and background in her village. She hadn’t pulled any great feat that could be referenced to. And how could the news of her conceiving a son be good news? She was yet to be married! Had she been the age of her kinswoman Elizabeth who was of age, news of conceiving a son would be good news indeed. But for a teenager who was yet to know a man, this was quite confusing (and embarrassing too). It was not until angel Gabriel’s ‘clarification’ that Mary got to understand the meaning of the angel’s greeting: ‘Elizabeth your cousin who was called barren has also conceived a son in her old age…’
Mary came to understand that the greeting was not hers alone. Mary came to understand that the Lord’s favor that rested upon her was not hers alone. She was receiving the greeting on behalf of her kinsfolk. The good news of her conceiving and bearing the son of God was actually not hers but rather good news for the world. It was the world that had been groaning in pain (cf. Romans 8:22) as it awaited the salvation that would come in God assuming a creaturely nature. Despite her being led into rebellion by the human race, the universe was still a graced creation of God, and God was not going to abandon her. This was the meaning behind the name (Jesus) that the child to be born was to be given. God was still with creation and had come to save it from perishing. Such was the good news that the angel Gabriel came bearing.