The holy Virgin may have feared that God had
rejected her vow of virginity; or at any rate, she may have been unaware of
God's designs and not seen by what means he intended her to have a son. Suppose
he should say: "Marry. Take a husband". (He would not, in fact, for
he had accepted her vow, as he does. What he took back from her was only what he
had given her in the first place.) So, she asked God's messenger: How can
that be?
The angel knew the answer, and the Virgin's question was put with all confidence. As he saw that she was asking confidently, he did not refuse to tell her what he knew. "It will be like this, " he said. "Your virginity is safe enough. What you have to do is to believe that my message is true, keep yourself a virgin and accept the gift of integrity. Because your faith is whole and entire, you will suffer no loss of wholeness in your body. Now I will tell you how that can be. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. You will conceive through your faith; you will be with child because you believe, not because you have lain with a man. Thus, this holy offspring of yours shall be known for the Son of God."
Yet who are you, that you should bear such a Child? How did you deserve it? Why did you receive so great an honor? Why should your Maker be made in your womb? Why should this extraordinary blessing be conferred on you? You were a virgin, I know; you were a saint, and you had made a vow. But all the same, you were richly rewarded, amply recompensed. How did you come to deserve it? The God who made you was made in your womb. The God through whom you were made was made within you, the God through whom heaven and earth and all that is came into being. God's Word was made flesh in your body; he took flesh from you and joined it to his Godhead. The Word united himself to human nature, the Word and the flesh were joined together. And the place where this amazing marriage was consummated was your womb. The Word and the flesh came together in your womb, and from your womb the Word came forth like a bridegroom from the place of his union. He found you a virgin when you conceived him, and he left you a virgin when you bore him. He gave you fruitfulness; he did not destroy your wholeness. Why should all this happen to you?
It may seem rude of me to ask such questions of the Virgin and insolent to assault her shamefast ears with words like these. But I find her modestly replying: "You ask me why this happened to me. I do not care to tell you of my good fortune myself; but think how the angel greeted me, and then you will see how your salvation was achieved in me. Do what I did: believe what you are told. If you want to know why these things happened, the angel will tell you." Tell me, then, good angel, why this happened to Mary. "I have already told you. It was for the reason I gave when I greeted her with the words: Hail, thou who art full of grace".
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