Solemnity of the Annunciation: ‘The Angel of the Lord Declared Unto Mary’, by John Grondelski

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Jan van Eyck, “The Annunciation,” 1435, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (photo: Eyck, Jan van / Public Domain)

By John Grondelski, EWTN News, April 7, 2024

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. He is especially interested in moral theology and the thought of John Paul II. [Note: All views expressed in his National Catholic Register contributions are exclusively the author’s.]

 

ROSARY & ART: The First Joyful Mystery is the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38)

John Grondelski“This is the beginning. This is the day. You are watching the unfolding of one of history’s great adventures.”

Those dramatic words began the 1965 sci-fi series, “Lost in Space.” They are even more fitting for the Annunciation, history’s greatest adventure.

Using our liturgical calendar, let’s put ourselves at the end of March in northern Israel more than 2,000 years ago. Living in Nazareth is a young woman named Mary. She was an observant Jewish girl raised by her parents, Joachim and Anne. She was perhaps in her teens (remember the lifespan of the times) and probably very poor. As regards the latter, so was Joseph, the man to whom she was engaged, even though — somewhere long ago — his family was part of the line of the great King David. …