The date of the Feast of the Annunciation is March 25, of course, but since that fell during Holy Week, we observe it today.
From the 2020 Book of Grace-Filled Days
Eleanor Parker, the “Clerk of Oxford:”
….the medieval church considered 25 March to be the single most important date in history: it was both the beginning and the end of Christ’s life on earth, the date of his conception at the Annunciation and his death on Good Friday. To underline the harmony and purpose which, in the eyes of medieval Christians, shaped the divinely-written narrative of the history of the world, 25 March was also said to be the date of other significant events: the eighth day of Creation, the crossing of the Red Sea, the sacrifice of Isaac, and other days linked with or prefiguring the story of the world’s fall and redemption. The date occurs at a conjunction of solar, lunar, and natural cycles: all these events were understood to have happened in the spring, when life returns to the earth, and at the vernal equinox, once the days begin to grow longer than the nights and light triumphs over the power of darkness. The resonances of 25 March reached even unto Middle Earth, as Tolkien aligned the downfall of the Ring to this most auspicious of dates.
‘Lady Day in Lent’ is the springtime feast of the Virgin Mary….
Here’s an image, which I ran across at some point last year. I think the artist either won or placed in a sacred art competition. Her name is Ivanka Demchuk.
You can purchase a print of this and others of her marvelous artwork here, at Etsy.
Some Annunciation-related material from my books:
The Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories
The Loyola Kids Book of Catholic Signs and Symbols
The Loyola Kids book of Seasons, Feasts and Celebrations:
Mary and the Christian Life – .99 on Kindle!
There’s also, of course, a chapter on the Hail Mary in here.
Here’s the first page.
And then, Edwin Muir’s poem, “Annunciation:”
The angel and the girl are met.
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.
The eternal spirits in freedom go.
See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other’s face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He’s come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makes
Each feather tremble on his wings.
Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way.
Sound’s perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.
But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make,
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their gaze would never break.