Let it be to me accord­ing to your word.” That is not just an incred­i­ble act of com­plete humil­i­ty and obe­di­ence, but it is an act of almost unimag­in­able sur­ren­der. If Mary was found with child out of mar­riage, by the law of Israel she could be stoned. And she could have said no, and avoid­ed all that. Instead she said “Fiat,” being under no mis­un­der­stand­ing about what that word could have meant to her, yet trust­ing ful­ly in the God who sent His archangel. But how would you feel to know that you had con­ceived in your womb the Cre­ator of all things?

Come thou long expect­ed Jesus! It is fit­ting that, in the midst of all the long­ing and wait­ing and prepar­ing that takes place dur­ing Advent, the Church reminds us to be joy­ful: foras­much as God will not leave us watch­ing and long­ing for­ev­er. The Mes­si­ah has been promised, and He will come. And it is fit­ting — and most impor­tant — that the Church calls to our mind the object of our only true long­ing. We think it is for earth­ly love, but earth­ly love is a fig­ure. We think it is for rich­es, but only the rich­es of heav­en will not become cor­rupt.

Joachim and Anne must have known. It is the kind of grace that will stand out, if your child nev­er sins. If your child nev­er once talks back to you, it is a good bet you will notice. If your child is nev­er dis­obe­di­ent, if your child nev­er has to be cor­rect­ed, if your child in short behaves in a way no child or per­son has ever behaved, you will be aware. How they must have mar­veled at their daugh­ter, and won­dered at the pur­pos­es of God. I do not know whether Mary’s par­ents may have sus­pect­ed that some­thing relat­ed to the promised Mes­si­ah was the cause of her immac­u­late con­cep­tion.

Sacred Scrip­ture is full of ref­er­ences to the dis­ci­pline of “watch­ing”: “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watch­ing dai­ly at my gates, wait­ing at the posts of my doors” (Prov. 8:34); “What I say unto you, I say unto all: Watch” (Mark 13:37); “Blessed are those ser­vants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watch­ing” (Luke 12:37); “But in all things approv­ing our­selves as the min­is­ters of God, in much patience, in afflic­tions, in neces­si­ties, in dis­tress­es, in stripes, in impris­on­ments, in tumults, in labours, in watch­ings, in fast­ings” (2 Cor. 6:4 – 5). “Watch with all per­se­ver­ance” (Eph. 6:18).

He is called “Angry Jesus,” but I appre­ci­ate John de Rosen’s art­work at the Basil­i­ca of the Nation­al Shrine of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion. I used to belong to the Church of the Warm and Fuzzy Jesus. I used to have an image of a Jesus who did noth­ing but walk around hold­ing lambs and pat­ting peo­ple on the head. But now I’m mid­dle-aged and jad­ed and a Jesus who is ticked off all the time makes more sense to me. De Rosen’s Jesus is Howard Beale in glo­ry. De Rosen’s Jesus is the one who said, “How can you escape the damna­tion of Hell?”