Annunciation of the Lord
On the twenty-fifth of March, nine months before Christmas, the Church celebrates the Annunciation — the moment when the angel Gabriel was sent to a young woman of Nazareth named Mary, betrothed to Joseph of the house of David, and saluted her with the words that have echoed through Christian prayer ever since: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.' At her fiat — 'Let it be done to me according to your word' — the eternal Word was conceived in her womb. Ancient tradition held that this was also the date of the world's creation and of Christ's death on the Cross. It is the hinge on which salvation history turns.