“The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’” (Luke 1:34)
The birth narrative of Jesus is susceptible to a considered feminist critique. And naturally any such examination would look carefully at Mary. Within that larger narrative, the story of the Annunciation brings some issues clearly into view.
Mary’s first words in response to the angelic greeting reveal the controlling patriarchal bent of the entire presentation: “How can this be,” Mary asks the angel, “since I know not a man?” The biblical audience, of course, knew that whatever the task might be (even if it wasn’t producing offspring), if it was to be meaningful, a man would be required. And St. Luke has put that same presumption right on Mary’s lips. How can this (or anything) be... without a man?
Things get worse when the angel responds. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” says Gabriel, “and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
Why must the accomplishment of God’s will require the overshadowing of a woman? I am not asking this question, tongue-in-cheek; and it is, perhaps, the central question of this critique. If the Gospel of Jesus is the truth; if it brings freedom; if it is renewal and reconciliation, then it cannot come at the expense of a woman - not any woman, and certainly not this woman. And when I look up synonyms for “overshadow,” what I find is not encouraging: eclipse, dwarf, cloud, darken, obscure, dim, outshine, dominate, shade. Is this the effect of the power of the Most High on Mary? To eclipse, darken, obscure, outshine, and dominate her? How like a man!
Since the biblical texts themselves, surely were produced by peoples and cultures that were fundamentally patriarchal in their outlook, we should not be surprised to find that the texts read that way. But still, this text is sacred. This story is sacred. Shouldn’t it hold up to scrutiny? If it’s good news, won’t something about this Annunciation story need to transcend the circumstances of its origins? It won’t surprise you to hear that I think the story does just that.
We could start, not incidentally, with the androgyny of angels. Or, to put it another way, we could take notice that Gabriel, like all angels, is gender-fluid. The text does not tell us this, but the tradition does, and I think we should trust the tradition on this point. I don’t know what pronouns angels use, but I strongly suspect that we should not take the answer for granted.
Turning to Mary, we should take note of an incredibly important detail that St. Luke provides us in his text. He tells us that Mary, who was perplexed by the angel’s greeting, takes the time to “ponder what sort of greeting this might be.”
Consider that seldom in the Bible do we find someone at a crucial moment taking time to think, perhaps to pray, to discern what God might actually be doing. Except where Jesus himself is concerned, the Bible does not actually provide many examples of holy contemplation at decisive moments of faith and salvation. David does not conduct a cost-benefit analysis of fighting Goliath, let alone a spiritual exercise. Quite the contrary, in the Bible, people are given messages in their dreams to act upon right away (like Joseph), or words or instructions in visions (like the prophets), or flashes of insight (like Solomon), or somewhat heavy-handed divine coercion (like Jonah or Zechariah).
But Mary, only Mary, takes her time, time to ponder what God is doing, while the angel waits for her. We often assume that Mary uses this time to decide how she will respond, of her own free will, without coercion or cajoling, to the greeting of the angel. And I think we might be correct in this assumption. I pray that we are. For much depends on the freedom of Mary’s choice.
Reaching a bit beyond the Annunciation (but foreshadowed here by the angel’s news that Mary’s cousin is also with child), we see Mary visiting Elizabeth, in whose presence the Mother of our Lord will soon sing Magnificat, “the longest set of words placed on the lips of any woman in the whole New Testament.”*
The feminist theologian, Elizabeth Johnson, points out that during that visitation, while Mary “is in the embrace of her cousin Elizabeth; Zechariah has been struck dumb; the house is now women’s space, and [the women] fill it with a prophetic language of faith.” Women’s space, women’s voices, women’s songs, women’s prayers, women’s wisdom, and women’s bodies all have their own dignity, beauty, and honor, even in the landscape of the biblical era, even in the pages of the Bible - especially in the company of Jesus.
By no means do these few observations of mine amount to a full response to the feminist critique of the birth narrative of Jesus. But I hope that we can begin to see that there is more at work in this story than the particular cultural mores of its author or its age.
But still there is the important matter of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, which at first glance, looks like such an obvious infringement on Mary’s personhood. “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you....” Does this mean that the power of the Most High will eclipse, dwarf, cloud, darken, obscure, dim, outshine, dominate, and cast shade over the lovely and loving figure of Mary? And if it does, who cares how much time she has been given to think about it?
The word for “overshadow” that St. Luke uses here is only very rarely used in the New Testament, and only one other time in the Gospels, when St. Mark describes the scene with Peter and James and John on the mount of the Transfiguration, as Jesus stands there, radiating light in the company of Moses and Elijah, and, St. Mark tells us, “a cloud overshadowed them. And from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved….’” This overshadowing cloud is not a cloud of eclipse, darkness, obfuscation, or domination. This is a cloud of light, brightness, revelation, clarity, and illumination. It is the cloud of God’s living Presence, wherein only few eyes have squinted to see the nearness of that Presence, only few ears have heard the timbre of that voice, and only few bodies have felt the closeness of the dew of God’s love in the mists of God’s own divine touch.
The Psalmist imagined being sheltered beneath the shadow of God’s wings, almost unable to imagine any place safer to be. And when Mary is overshadowed by the power of the Most High, there is no place safer, no place holier, no place less violating than the damp warmth of that cloud, where Mary is embraced for the highest purposes of Love, as no one else in the history of the universe has been thus embraced, thus loved, thus overshadowed.
No wonder that when Mary has decided what her answer to the angel will be, she is emboldened to speak in the idiom of creation, echoing the words of the creator under whose shadow she will soon be held, and who called the creation into being just by saying, “Let it be.” What other lips could ever utter such a thing, and accomplish anything by it? But when Mary speaks these creative words, “Let it be with me according to thy word,” in all her wonderful womanliness, do not the morning stars sing again together, and all the heavenly beings shout again for joy?
No wonder the catholic tradition gets carried away when trying earnestly to come to grips with the mystery of God’s love, and Mary’s remarkable role in the story of that love. For no other creature has ever been overshadowed like this: so thoroughly and completely enfolded in the divine embrace, so entirely involved in the divine work, so perfectly welcomed into the divine household.
No wonder that once she finally found herself face to face with Elizabeth - with someone she could actually tell about it - no wonder she sang!
No wonder we find ourselves, here, beneath the shelter of God’s wings, praying that God might somehow, some way, some day overshadow us, too!
No wonder, the angel’s greeting has become code for the prayer for the thing that is beyond praying for, beyond hoping for, and so unlikely to come to pass as to be considered ridiculous, although we hope with all our hearts that it just might happen:
Hail, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee! Hail, Mary; hail, Mary; hail, Mary, full of grace!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
The Feast of the Annunciation, 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
*Elizabeth Johnson, “Mary of Nazareth: Friend of God and Prophet,” in America magazine, 17 June, 2000
The Lady Chapel at Saint Mark’s