The Mother of the Lord and Jesus in prison cloths. The painting is done by Fr. Arsenie Boca, who was imprisoned during communism. The Church Elefterie in Bucharest.

Regardless of where I am, I always try to call my mom on March 25. It is the Annunciation, and I know she has always loved this day. I don’t often have something to tell her. There is nothing spectacular in my life. However, being at that moment together, something is said. The “she and I” is being said. When calling other people, the “they and I” is being said.

Regardless of the words used, the being together is “love” in all of these situations. What if I respond to it with the words of the Virgin: “Be it done unto me according to Thy word!”

The Annunciation… Giving yourself up in the arms of love, regardless of perils, of shame, of disgrace… Giving yourself up–becoming a birthgiver of that with which you are pregnant: the Beautiful! “When the soul, when our whole being becomes pure, when we… attain the state of virginity… Jesus is born in our being” (Fr. Arsenie Boca, Living Words).

Pregnant with the Beautiful we are. But we can also be birthgivers of the Beautiful.

The Annunciation reminds us of one other thing: we also need an angel to remind us of our pregnancy. Perhaps we can all be angels to one another, and doing so, without even realizing, we give birth to the beautiful in us and in others.