By Canon Philip Gillespie

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On 25 March – which this year is a Wednesday – we solemnly keep the remembrance of the Annunciation of the Lord, the visit of the Angel Gabriel to Mary at Nazareth. Of course, it is no accident that the gap between 25 March and 25 December is nine months – the time of a ‘textbook’ pregnancy. 

In this way, the Annunciation celebrates both the visit of the angel and the openness and obedience of Mary, and, also, the conception of the Child Jesus. As it is put in the Catechism, Jesus “was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin.” 

The Annunciation – or Lady Day as it was known in Medieval England – had great civic significance as well because it marked the beginning of a New Year, just as it marked the outset, or the beginning, of the Christian era with Mary’s “fiat”: “let it be done to me according to God’s Word”. It was not until 1752 that England changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar – and 11 ‘lost’ days were added, thus giving us 6 April, which even today is the beginning of the new tax year. So you could say that within a 12-month period we have three beginnings to the year: in the Liturgical calendar, it is the first Sunday of Advent; for the civil year, it is 1 January; while, for the tax year, it is not until April. 

At the heart of it all stands the proclamation of Christ, the Alpha and Omega – the first and final letters of the Greek alphabet, and the beginning and end of all things and of every year; as we will pray when the Paschal Candle is prepared and blessed at the Easter Vigil: 

Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, 

the Alpha and the Omega. 
All time belongs to him and all the ages. 
To him be glory and power through every age, for ever. 
Amen. 

Our prayer with and for each other is also drawn from the Liturgy of the Easter Vigil:

 
May the light of Christ, rising in glory, 
dispel the darkness of hearts and minds.