Luke 1:26-38 (Feast of the Annunciation)

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be
born will be holy; he will be called Son of God…For nothing will be
impossible with God.” (1:35, 37)

The Old and New Testaments are filled with accounts of visits from
angels. In the Annunciation story, God sends the Archangel Gabriel
with a message for Mary. Gabriel conveys God’s message that Mary
is chosen to bear God’s Son. The angel’s visit changes Mary’s life
and changes the world for all time.

We don’t hear much about angels today. In the West, the very notion
of angels has been largely defined by the media and actualized in
gift shop “tchotchkes.” If angels visit us, in our dreams or even our
waking hours, we aren’t talking about it.

Yet, Gabriel’s parting words to Mary remind us that “nothing will be
impossible with God.” In each of us there exists the potential not
only to receive visits by angels, but even to serve as messengers of
God.

Like Gabriel’s life-changing, world-changing effect, each of us has
the potential, and baptismal call, to change the world. It is us, God’s
contemporary angels, who can heal a hurting world. The Holy Spirit
bestows the resources, the will and the responsibility upon us at our
baptism.

A hungry child…a struggling woman, afraid for her life…a young boy,
forced to hold a rifle…all are waiting for an angel.

What will it take for you to be the angel?

—Bonnie Anderson