From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
March 25, 2026 (#87)
The Solemnity of the Annunciation: The Beginning of the New Year/Age
The story of the Annunciation of the Lord is recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke, chapter 1: 26-38. Therein is told the story of the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary at Nazareth, inviting her to accept her vocation as the Mother of God, which she humbly does. With the angel’s announcement of God's plan and her full acceptance of it, “the Word became flesh” in her womb, leading to the birth, nine months later, of the divine child Jesus, in Bethlehem. This same Gospel, of course, is the one proclaimed at Mass each year, on March 25th, when the Catholic Church celebrates the “Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord,” exactly nine months prior to the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord, December 25, that is, Christmas.
This event is so central to the entire “Mystery of Faith” that the Church insists on its celebration each year. When March 25th falls on a Sunday of Lent, or during Holy Week or Easter Week, days on which even solemnities cannot be observed, then the celebration is moved to the nearest available date on the liturgical calendar. In the Orthodox Churches, recognizing the centrality of this event in God’s plan of salvation for the world, the Annunciation is observed with all liturgical rites even if Good Friday is observed on March 25. In those rare years when both days coincide, the Orthodox observe both events liturgically on the same day. Prior to 1969, the Catholic Church called the day the “Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Since then, the Church has changed the designation and classified the day as a feast of the Lord, as the Orthodox have consistently done.
In 525 AD, Dionysius Exiguus, a monk from present day Romania, introduced a calendar system that established March 25 as the beginning of the new year and the Annunciation as the beginning of the new era or age of grace, i.e., beginning with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He also gave us the designation, Anno Domini (most often abbreviated as “AD”). Over the centuries since, the near universal tendency has been to return to the pagan Roman designation of January the 1 as the beginning of each new year. And in more recent times, especially in academic works, instead of referring to “AD,” it has become fashionable to use “CE,” a designation for the “Common Era,” thus avoiding the explicit reference to Our Lord. All that aside, for the Christian disciple, the Annunciation marks the central point of all history: the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, who made possible our hope of salvation.
Artistic images of the Annunciation and related materials can be found at:
https://inhisname.com/search?options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=annunciation
