40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Wednesday, Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, 25 March 2026
Isaiah 7:10-14, 8:10 +++ Hebrews 10:4-10 +++ Luke 1:26-38
A friend informed me last Monday of the death of a former classmate in elementary named Nilo; his brother Mar had sent me a message asking me if I could possibly celebrate Mass at his wake: “A long time ago we met in a Mass in our Barrio chapel when you approached us and greeted ‘kumusta, Nilo, classmate!’ And I never forgot that smile on his face after you acknowledged him. Nilo was so happy with your coming to him… we will greatly appreciate if you can celebrate Mass for him in his wake.”
I was so touched with the message and despite my toxic schedule this week, I promised to come today to offer a Mass for Nilo.
That’s why while praying over today’s Solemnity of the Annunciation, I realized how in every greeting we also bring Jesus Christ, of how we make him present in others too.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming of her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! Then Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:26-28)
The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord often falls in Lent, adding more meaning in our inner journey into our hearts to meet Christ in this blessed season.
Notice how in our Sunday and daily readings we find God greeting us, inviting us to come to him to set things right in our lives (Is.1:18). Here is a God so loving, pointing out our sins but never judging us but actually believing in us that we could change and be converted to become better persons.
The past three weeks have been so tiring but fulfilling for me as a university chaplain giving recollection and hearing confession later in our various university campuses. First thing I tell every penitent is how God is so happy with us when we come to the sacrament of reconciliation because he has long been waiting for us. God rejoices because we finally welcome him in our lives!
Though it could be painful and shameful to confess our many sins, it is actually the sign of grace working in us too because the moment we change our sinful ways, then we grow! When we see our sins, our weaknesses and limitations as humans yet still forge on in life to become better persons, to achieve greater things for others, that is God working in us.
That is why Luke tells us today how the angel greeted Mary during the annunciation using the Greek words “kaire” which is to rejoice and “charis” or “karis” for grace: “Hail (or rejoice), full of grace! The Lord is with you” (Lk.1:28).
This is actually unusual because Jews greet each other with “shalom” for peace; why did Luke use kaire?
Because wherever and whenever there is grace, surely there is rejoicing like in those beautiful gospel stories we have heard the past three Sundays this Lent: the Samaritan woman, the healing of the man born blind, and the raising to life of Lazarus who had been dead for four days. In all these instances, it was Jesus Christ who came on his own to bring grace to everyone that everybody rejoiced.
Lent is the time to get real, to stop pretending. It is the time for us to finally admit our own limitations and weaknesses in order to create a space in our hearts and in our lives to let God fill us, to let God possess us. That is the purpose of the lenten practice of fasting.
Mary became the Mother of Jesus Christ not because of any special qualities in herself but simply because God is so good, so loving. Despite her fears and questions, she welcomed the angel Gabriel by saying “yes” to God’s plan of giving birth to the Messiah and Savior of mankind.
Can we be like Mary who said yes and allowed God’s power to “hover over us” to renew our lives in welcoming Jesus Christ?
This was the problem of Isaiah with King Ahaz in the first reading who pretended to refusing God in asking for signs of his presence when actually he had already entered into alliances with other pagan kings in the region as the Babylonians were closing in them; he had doubted God already. Hence, Isaiah’s prophecy to insist that God is our protector: “Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men, must you also weary my God? Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel: God is with us” (Is.7:13-14; 8:10).
How sad that in this modern time when we rely more with our science and technology, we have not only shut out God from our lives but we have even refused to welcome him in his coming to us, asking us to open ourselves anew to him and his powers and plans. We have not only become impersonal but worst, we seem to have chosen death more than life, darkness than light. Just check on the news going on everywhere and we see how heartless we have become.
The late American spiritual writer and monk Thomas Merton rightly said, “We live in a time of no room, which is the time of the end. The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space… The primordial blessing, ‘increase and multiply’ has suddenly become a hemorrhage of terror… In the time of the end there is no longer room for the desire to go on living. Why? Because they are part of a proliferation of life that is not fully alive, it is programmed for death” (Raids on the Unspeakable, pp. 70-72).
What a tragedy in our modern time when we are supposed to be more intelligent with so many inventions, more affluent with so many money, more real with everything being shown in social media, the more we are empty and lost. Our communications are all mass mediated, no more person to person that is warm, so filled with life that is vibrant and dynamic giving us so much reasons to believe, to love, to hope in life and the future.
The Solemnity of the Lord reminds us today of God’s coming among us like one of us in everything except sin. In Christ’s coming through the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are reminded how each one of us is a sign of God’s presence and coming. Every time we greet one another, every time we reach out to others in love and kindness, every time we are one with others especially the marginalized and neglected, we do the will of God (second reading) and become an Emmanuel, a God-is-with-us. Amen.
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