The Lives of the Saints, Volume 03 (of 16): March

by S. Baring-Gould

It is said that in the church of Notre Dame du Puy en Valey has the privilege of making it over-ride Good Friday, when it occurs on that day; and that on that day there are great indulgences as a jubilee in that church. The Council of Constantinople, in "Trullo," already mentioned, ordered that the mass of the pre-sanctified should be said on all days in Lent except the Sabbath, the Lord's day, and the Feast of the Annunciation. Pope Urban II., in a council held at Clermont, in 1095, ordered that every day the church bell should be rung, morning, noon, and evening, and that each time it was rung the faithful should recite the Angelic Salutation. This is called the Angelus. The object of the Holy Father was to stir up the faithful to thank God for the benefit of the Incarnation. Popes John XXII., Calixtus III., Paul III., Alexander VII., and Clement X., have recommended this practice and attached indulgences to it. These were confirmed by Benedict XIII.

The Greeks observe the same day as the Latins. In the Menologium of the emperor Basil the younger, it is thus described: "On the 25th day of March, the Annunciation of the most holy Mother of God. Our God, most loving and merciful to human salvation, who ever careth for the sons of men, when He beheld man, the work of His hands, brought under the bondage of Satan, willed to send His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world, to pluck man out of the power of the devil. But willing not that Satan, nay, nor the celestial powers should know thereof, he committed this secret to one of the archangels, Gabriel the Glorious. And having made by His providence that a Virgin pure and immaculate should be born meet for so high an honour, to her was Gabriel sent, and he came to the city called Nazareth, and said to her, 'Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!' But she asked, 'How shall these things be?' To whom he made reply, 'The Holy Ghost shall descend on thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.' And she said, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.' And having thus spoken, she conceived above nature a son, the Word of God; and thereafter were fulfilled all the mysteries of the Word of God incarnate pertaining to our salvation."

In the Greek Menæa also, it is said, "March 25th, the commemoration of the Annunciation of the most holy Mother of God, our Lady, when the arch-warrior, Gabriel, captain of the celestial armies, being instructed in the secret from eternity and unknown to angels, the mystery hidden of the divine incarnation of the Son of God, was sent to the most pure Mary, unstained with any spot of sin, in the city of Nazareth, that he might declare to her the will of God the Father, and the favour and efficacious help of the life-giving Spirit for the salvation of man. And he said to her, 'Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.'"

THE ANNUNCIATION. After Israel Van Mecken, in the Museum at Munich.

March 25.

This is the exordium of a Greek hymn on the Annunciation, by S. Joseph, the hymnographer:—"When Gabriel, the great archangel, saw thee, O pure one! the living book of Christ, sealed with the Holy Ghost, he cried to thee, 'Rejoice, oh house of joy! through whom is abolished the malediction pronounced on our first parents.'"

The ancient Arabian-Egyptian church also observed this festival. In an Arabic martyrology, the entry on March 25th is as follows, "The memorial of the Annunciation of the Mother of God, and the Incarnation of the Son of God, this day the first-fruits of our salvation and the manifestation of a mystery kept hidden from all ages. The Son of God issued forth Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel announced the favour. And now we with him exclaim, 'Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!'" The same festival is observed by the Copts, and found in the Syriac and Chaldee, and Russian Kalendars.

In the sacramentary of S. Gregory the Great, the proper preface for this day runs thus: "... through Christ our Lord, whom Gabriel, the archangel, announced was to be born for man's salvation, the Virgin Mary, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, conceived; that what angelic sublimity announced, virginal purity might believe, and ineffable Deity might perform. And thus we hope, by Thy assistance, to behold His face without confusion, in the solemnity of whose Incarnation we now rejoice."