6. How does Gabriel respond to Mary’s question?
Gabriel informs her:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Here Gabriel indicates the involvement of all three Persons of the Trinity: Through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Father causes the Son to be conceived in human form. There will be no human father, making clear the fact that the child will be the Son of God.
As a further illustration of God’s power, he points to the fact that Elizabeth, though old and apparently barren, has miraculously conceived a son and is in her sixth month of pregnancy. “For with God nothing will be impossible.”
7. Is Elizabeth Mary’s cousin?
This question sometimes comes up in discussions of Mary’s perpetual virginity, because it is sometimes thought that the “brothers” of the Lord were his cousins and that they are described as brothers because Aramaic has no word for “cousin.”
Yet the New American Bible described Elizabeth as Mary’s cousin.
Who Jesus “brothers” were has been understood in different ways. The earliest sources that comment on the question (including the second-century “Protoevangelium of James”) say that they were stepbrothers through Joseph. They also, hypothetically, could have been adopted (adoption was very common in the ancient world since people often died early). So they need not have been cousins.
While it’s true that Aramaic does not have a word for cousin, Greek does (“anepsios”), but that is not the word used here.
Despite the well-known mistranslation in the NAB (later corrected in the NABRE), Elizabeth is not described as Mary’s “cousin.” The Greek word in this passage (“sungenis”) indicates a female relative — a kinswoman — not a cousin in particular.
8. Why is Mary’s “fiat” important?
Mary’s acceptance of this role is momentous and will entail suffering. It is momentous because she will be the mother of the Son of God himself. It will entail suffering in ways that she cannot yet foresee (e.g., witnessing the Crucifixion), but some she can foresee.
In particular, she will be regarded as having been unfaithful to Joseph, and that involves not only public shame but, as Matthew records, endangering her relationship with Joseph and her future livelihood and social position. Yet she places herself completely at the service of God’s will.
Commenting on this, Pope Benedict writes:
“In one of his Advent homilies, Bernard of Clairvaux offers a stirring presentation of the drama of this moment. After the error of our first parents, the whole world was shrouded in darkness, under the dominion of death. Now God seeks to enter the world anew. He knocks at Mary’s door. He needs human freedom. The only way he can redeem man, who was created free, is by means of a free ‘yes’ to his will. In creating freedom, he made himself in a certain sense dependent upon man. His power is tied to the unenforceable ’yes’ of a human being.
“So Bernard portrays heaven and earth as it were holding its breath at this moment of the question addressed to Mary. Will she say yes? She hesitates … will her humility hold her back? Just this once — Bernard tells her — do not be humble but daring! Give us your ‘yes’! This is the crucial moment when, from her lips, from her heart, the answer comes: ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ It is the moment of free, humble yet magnanimous obedience in which the loftiest choice of human freedom is made (‘Jesus of Nazareth 3: The Infancy Narratives,’ chapter 2).”
This article originally appeared on April 7, 2013, at the National Catholic Register and has been adapted by CNA.
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