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Solemnity of the
Annunciation of the Lord • Year A • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Isaiah 7:10-14
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 40:7-8, 8-9, 10, 11
Second Reading: Hebrews 10:4-10
Gospel: Luke 1:26-38
📖 The Gospel - Luke 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel
comes to Mary in Nazareth. Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Mary is
troubled and ponders what this greeting means. Gabriel tells her, " You will
conceive and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great, Son of
the Most High. His kingdom will have no end." Mary says, “How can this be?” And
then Mary says the words that changed all of human history: Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
Stop and think about
what day this is. March 25th. The Annunciation. Nine months before December
25th. This is the day the Word became flesh. This is the day that God, in His
extraordinary courtesy, asked a young woman in Nazareth for permission to enter
human history, and she said yes. And everything changed.
In the middle of Lent. In the middle of the
journey toward the cross. The Church stops and says, wait. Before the cross,
there was a yes. Before the Passion, there was an Annunciation. Before Calvary,
there was Nazareth. And the same person who stood at the foot of the cross
stood first in a small room and said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word.”
The Psalm today is breathtaking, “Behold I
come to do Your will.” The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Christ Himself
prayed those words as He entered the world. The same surrender that Mary speaks
at the Annunciation is the surrender Jesus speaks of entering human flesh, I come
to do Your will. Mother and Son, from the very beginning, speak the same
yes.
This is the heart of everything. This is the
chord that runs beneath every week of Lent we have walked through: Return,
Mercy, Transformation, Sight, Life, Surrender. Every one of them is a variation
of this one great yes. May it be done to me according to Your word. That is the
prayer of Lent. That is the prayer of Holy Week. That is the prayer we are
being invited to make our own before Easter arrives. And for us who love Our
Lady, today is one of the most beautiful days of the year. The day Mary said
yes. The day our Mother became our Mother.
💭 Reflection Question
Is there something
God has been asking of you during this Lent, something that has required your
own Annunciation moment, your own may it be done to me according to Your word,
that you have not yet fully surrendered to? What would it mean to say - yes
today?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Agony in the
Garden
The Annunciation and
the Agony in the Garden are the two great moments of surrender in salvation
history, Mary's yes at the beginning and Jesus's yes in the garden at the end.
Both said the same thing in different words: not my will but Yours. As you pray
these beads today on this most Marian of feast days, let their combined yes
echo through every decade and carry your own yes to the Father.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
The Fatima
apparitions begin and end with Our Lady's yes. She said yes to God at the
Annunciation, and she has been saying yes ever since, interceding, appearing,
calling, weeping, guiding. At Fatima, she said yes to another mission, to come
to three shepherd children in a dusty field and carry the message of her Son's
mercy to a world in crisis. Everything she asked for at Fatima flows from that
same original yes; she spoke to Gabriel. On this feast of the Annunciation,
honor her yes. And speak your own.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Hail Mary, full of
grace, on this day you said yes and changed everything. Help me to say my own
yes today, whatever God is asking, wherever He is sending me, whatever it will
cost. Behold, I am His servant. May it be done to me according to His word.
Amen.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
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