Fast & Fascinating Facts on March 25th, the Annunciation, and Christ’s Prenatal Life

March 25th was observed as New Year's Day by most European countries in the Middle Ages, when it was known as "Annunciation Day" and celebrated primarily as a religious feast. This changed in the late 16th century when Roman Catholic nations abandoned the Julian calendar for the Gregorian and began to celebrate New Year's on January first. Scotland switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1600, followed by Germany, Denmark and Sweden around 1700, while England continued to observe the Annunciation as the beginning of the New Year until 1752. Source: "New Year’s Day," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999

99 percent of all Christians asked where the Incarnation took place would answer incorrectly--citing the place of the Nativity rather than the site of the Annunciation; this is what the insightful pro-life Christian writer Randy Alcorn, head of Eternal Perspective Ministries, contends in his comprehensive work "ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments" (Multnomah Pub.). Toward the end of the 2000 edition in the “Sanctity of Life Message” he notes that the vast majority of Christians will answer Bethlehem, rather than correctly identify the location as Nazareth.

Pope John Paul II chose the date of March 25th to promulgate his 1995 “Evangelium Vitae” (Gospel of Life) upholding the teaching on the sanctity of all human life, especially the unborn.

Pope John Paul II also chose this date of March 25th in 2003 to personally sign and grant a pro-life Apostolic Blessing to the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy and all the faithful who join them in reciting the Divine Mercy Chaplet to end abortion, euthanasia, cloning and embryonic stem cell research. Interestingly, in the papal blessing the feast is referred to by the more informative title: Solemnity of the Incarnation of The Divine Word.

Pope John Paul II made the collegial consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Feast of the Annunciation/Incarnation on March 25th, 1984, and pointedly commented on it in 2004 exactly two decades later when he highlighted the Incarnational import of the selection of this date: According to a Catholic World News report of March 24, 2004, Pope John Paul II, at his weekly public audience on this eve of the collegial consecration’s 20-year anniversary, began his reflection on that act by reminding those attending that March 25th is the Feast of the Annunciation, which, in his words, “allows us to contemplate the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, made man in Mary's womb."

The Annunciation is listed at or near the top of the most frequently depicted subjects in the history of Western art. In 1887 Rev. I.T. Hecker wrote of the Annunciation: “Such is the narrative…which has inspired countless tomes of exposition from the pens of doctors, pontiffs, theologians, and has inspired, too, more representations than any other event, unless the Crucifixion, from the hand of Christian masters.” Source: “The Annunciation in Art,” Catholic World, Vol. XLV, Apr. 1887, No.265

Leo Severino, producer of the pro-life themed film Bella noted the "providential" significance of the film's milestones coinciding with important religious feast dates. Severino said that although not planned, Bella's "first public showing was on the Feast of the Annunciation." Quote from October 18, 2007 televised interview with Severino on EWTN's Life on the Rock

The companion guide to Mel Gibson's film The Passion of The Christ, entitled "Guide to the Passion: 100 Questions," points out in the first few pages the recent reawakening to the significance of the Annunciation as the beginning of Christ's life--the answer to the "Incarnation" question noted that increasingly the Feast of the Annunciation is being celebrated on March 25th in honor of that most important event of history.

Christian author J.R.R. Tolkien chose March 25th for a life-affirming event at the end of his “Lord of the Rings.” Despite the length of the three volumes, in a trilogy centering on war, the birth of babies is remarkably absent. But in the last few pages of the story we find: "The first of Sam and Rosie's children was born on the twenty-fifth of March, a date that Sam noted." Given the Christian/Catholic influences and rich symbolism in Tolkien's work, it is likely that the Annunciation feast date of March 25th was specifically chosen for this revelation of new life at the end of the last volume.

Several hospitals in Hungary announced they would stop aborting children on March 25th and other holy days after an interdenominational group of bishops led by the Alfa Alliance’s Imre Teglasy held prayer vigils outside, placing special emphasis on the March 25th Annunciation and the December 28th feast of the Holy Innocents.

In 2004 on the March 25th feast of the Annunciation, Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York established the Sisters of Life as a religious institute of diocesan right. This was done at the direction of the Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

In England, this feast day still determines the due date for payment of income tax-- April 5, which is March 25th if one subtracts the eleven extra days added with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Until the mid-18th century, England used the Julian calendar, in which the March 25th Annunciation feast was the first day of the civil New Year.

At the 2008 Solemn Papal Mass of Pope Benedict XVI in Nationals Park, Washington, D.C., the Archbishop of that diocese, Most Rev. Donald W. Wuerl, included the following anecdote concerning the March 25th arrival of Catholic colonists in his opening address to the Holy Father: "Not all that far from here, in 1634, the first Catholics arrived in the colonies that later formed the United States. The celebration of Mass at St. Clements Island, March 25th 1634, marked the beginning of an unbroken line of continuity in faith and worship that we hope is made manifest is so many ways during your visit with us."

Mother Angelica, often considered the most influential Catholic woman in the modern U.S., was named after the Annunciation: The full religious name of Mother Angelica, founder of EWTN Catholic television network, is "Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation."

Chapter two of Anthony DeStefano’s book “Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To” cites the Annunciation and Incarnation in Nazareth as the most dramatic example of how even the most profound encounters with God inspire an immediate reaching out toward others rather than a turning inward in what we might naturally expect to be a prolonged period of personal meditation: “In the history of the world, no one has ever had a more profound encounter with God than Mary did at that moment. The Gospel says that the Holy Spirit literally ‘overshadowed her’ and that Jesus Christ--the second person of the Holy Trinity--was conceived in her womb. Now what did Mary do after this experience? Did she go off on a spiritual retreat? Did she lock herself in her room and meditate?….She would have been more than justified to take a few weeks to mull things over in her mind, to pray intensely and try to come to grips with the mystery of what had happened to her. But no, she didn’t do any of these things. Instead Mary left Nazareth immediately and rushed to the side of her cousin in order to help her. And she stayed at her side for three months, until Elizabeth’s baby was born.”

April Fool’s Day has its origins in the change from the March 25th New Year to January 1st. In the older tradition March 25th began an eight-day New Year’s celebration extending through April 1st. When the new calendar was introduced, not everyone wanted New Year’s Day moved to January, and those who insisted on keeping the old New Year and preserving the long celebration of it into the first day of April were called “April Fools”--thus April 1st became April Fool’s Day.

St. Therese of Liseux’s earnestly desired early entrance into religious life (for which she sought a Papal audience in Rome) was finally achieved during the community’s celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation in 1888. (She had hoped it would happen on the previous Christmas Day, but later realized that many graces came to her in the interim delay.) The actual date of her entrance into the Carmel convent was April 9th--she notes in the first line of chapter 7 in her autobiography “Story of a Soul,” that the feast was “transferred because of Lent.” This saint, known as “The Little Flower,” also makes a passing reference in her autobiography to the continuity of Jesus's pre- and post-natal childhood and Mary's maternal relationship with Him: "…Mary had carried Jesus in her arms, having carried Him in her Virginal womb." From Chapter 6 of "A Story of a Soul," 3 rd ed., trans. from the original manuscripts by John Clarke, O.C.D.