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.