Lent Meditation: Day 36 - March 25, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

— John 1:14

🕯️Meditation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation—the day we remember the angel Gabriel coming to Mary to announce to her that she would bear a child, Jesus. In the 11th century it became the practice in certain monasteries to pause work briefly and remember the message of the angel, and the mystery of the incarnation—the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. This brief devotion became known at The Angelus. It continues to be a popular devotion for many Roman Catholics and some Anglicans/Episcopalians. The humanity of God in Jesus, announced by Gabriel, is most fully seen in God’s full embrace of human frailty and mortality in the sufferings, cross and death of Christ. It also connects us here in the final days of Lent with the Christmas festival that occurs in 9 months (December 25).

I leave you with two prayers today: the collect for the Feast of the Annunciation, and the collect for the 2nd Sunday after Christmas Day.

🙏 Prayer

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, you Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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