What does it mean, psychologically, for something to be born in a person that did not come from the person's own nature? These reflections take the Annunciation not as historical event or theological doctrine but as a map of a specific inner crisis — the moment when something higher makes contact with the unprepared soul, and the soul must choose whether to consent. This is territory that belongs neither to religion nor to psychology alone, but to the unnamed space where both originate.

First reading

From the Book of Isaiah — Isaiah 9:1-7

Yet the gloom shall not linger over those who were in anguish. In earlier days he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the time to come he will bring glory to the way of the sea, the region beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a brilliant light; those who dwelt in the land of death's own shadow — upon them the light has broken forth.

You have made the nation great. You have deepened their gladness. They celebrate before you as people celebrate at harvest, as warriors exult when they divide the plunder.

For the yoke that weighed on them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of the one who drove them — you have shattered it all, as on the day of Midian.

For every boot that tramped in battle's thunder and every cloak soaked through with blood shall be cast into the flames, devoured by fire.

For a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and authority shall rest upon his shoulders. He shall be named Wonder of a Counselor, God of all Might, Father without End, the Prince of Peace.

His reign and his peace shall grow without limit, established on David's throne and over David's kingdom, upheld in justice and in righteousness from this day forward and forevermore. The burning zeal of the LORD of Hosts will bring this to pass.

Gospel

From the Gospel of Luke — Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a young woman pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The young woman's name was Mary.

The angel entered her presence and said, "Rejoice, O favored one! The Lord is with you. You are blessed among women."

When she saw him she was deeply unsettled by his words, turning over in her mind what such a greeting could mean.

The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor in the sight of God. Listen: you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. Of his kingdom there will be no end."

Mary said to the angel, "How can this come about, since I have known no man?"

The angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. For this reason the holy child born of you will be called the Son of God. And see — your kinswoman Elizabeth has herself conceived a son in her old age; she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail."

Then Mary said, "Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you have spoken." And the angel left her.

— Interpretation —

Today is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, and the readings place before us two moments that are, at their deepest level, one single moment: the breaking-in of a light that does not belong to the darkness it enters.

Isaiah says: The people who walked in darkness have seen a brilliant light; on those who dwelt in the shadow of death, radiance has broken through. And in the Gospel, an angel appears to a young woman in an obscure town, in a conquered province, and announces that something will be born in her that she did not generate, did not plan, and cannot account for by any natural means. How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?

Let us pause here. Let us not rush past the strangeness of this question, because it is the essential question of inner transformation. Mary is asking: How can something come into existence in me that has no origin in anything I already am? She is not asking a biological question. She is asking the question that every person asks, consciously or unconsciously, at the threshold of real change. How can I become something I am not? How can something be born in me that my present nature did not father?

This is what we must understand. The ordinary man — the natural man, in Paul’s phrase (1 Corinthians 2:14), or the first man, in Nicoll’s — can only reproduce himself. His thinking produces more of the same thinking. His reactions beget more reactions. His self-love generates fresh forms of self-love, endlessly inventive but always recognizable. The natural man is, as it were, fertile only with himself. Everything he conceives comes from what he already knows, already is. And this is precisely the meaning of Mary’s words: I know not a man. She is, inwardly understood, a state of the soul that has not been made pregnant by the natural mind. She is virgin in the sense that she has not yet been filled with the assumptions, the certainties, the mechanical convictions that make a person unable to receive anything genuinely new.

Now notice: the angel does not argue with her question. He does not explain how it will happen in terms she can already understand. He says only: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. That is, the conception will come from above, from a level she cannot reach by effort, and it will overshadow — not replace, not destroy, but cover and penetrate — what she already is. And the result will be called the Son of God. Something of an entirely different order from anything the natural mind could produce.

This is the central mystery of the New Birth, and it must be taken with the utmost seriousness as a psychological event. There is a state in which a person becomes capable of receiving what is higher precisely because they have become empty of what is merely their own. Not emptied by despair, not hollowed out by suffering alone, though suffering may prepare the ground — but emptied by a particular quality of willingness. Mary’s response is the key: Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said. She does not say: I understand. She does not say: I am worthy. She says: Let it happen. I consent to what I cannot comprehend.

This is extraordinarily rare. The mechanical mind, our ordinary consciousness, wants to understand before it consents. It wants guarantees. It wants to remain in control of the process. But the birth of the New Man in us requires a reversal of this habitual posture. One must consent before one understands. One must receive before one can see what has been received.

Isaiah’s prophecy speaks of this same event from a different angle. For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. Notice the two movements — born and given. The child is born in us, but it is given to us. It is not our achievement. And the names — Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace — these are not titles for an external king. They are qualities of the new consciousness that comes into being when a person has received what is higher than themselves. Wonderful, because it exceeds anything the natural mind could anticipate. Counsellor, because it brings a wisdom that does not come from experience. Prince of Peace, because it resolves the war between what we are and what we might become — not by victory of one side over the other, but by the arrival of something that contains and transcends both.

The question remains, always: How shall this be?

And the answer remains, always: not by anything you already know. Only by consent to what you do not yet understand. The light does not explain itself to the darkness. It simply shines. And the darkness must choose whether to remain what it is, or to let itself be overshadowed.

Photo by Yunshuo Qu on Unsplash

Scripture: Unified English Version