Sunday’s Reading: St. Gabriel in Nazareth (Lk 1:26) – 5 Quotes from the Fathers
Complement your discussions and meditations on today’s Sunday Reading with 5 quotes from the fathers of the Church. Today, at Mass, St, Luke recounts the moment of the Incarnation.
Weighing in on the topic are Theophylact, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, Basil and Origen. Legwork complementary of St. Thomas Aquinas.
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When the sixth month came, God sent the angel Gabriel to a city of Galilee called Nazareth, where a virgin dwelt, betrothed to a man of David’s lineage; his name was Joseph, and the virgin’s name was Mary. Into her presence the angel came, and said, Hail, thou who art full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women…St. Luke the Evangelist
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It was as a fit beginning for man’s restoration, that an angel should be sent down from God to consecrate a virgin by a divine birth, for the first cause of man’s perdition was the Devil sending a serpent to deceive a woman by the spirit of pride.Theophylact
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And rightly an angel is sent to the virgin, because the virgin state is ever akin to that of angels. Surely in the flesh to live beyond the flesh is not a life on earth but in heaven.St. Jerome
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The angel announces the birth to the virgin not after the conception, lest she should be thereby too much troubled, but before the conception he addresses her, not in a dream, but standing by her in visible shape. For as great indeed were the tidings she receives, she needed before the issue of the event an extraordinary visible manifestation.St. John Chrysostom
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The heavenly spirits visit us, not as it seems fit to them, but as the occasion conduces to our advantage, for they are ever looking upon the glory and fullness of the Divine Wisdom; hence it follows, “The angel Gabriel was sent.”Basil
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For if she had had no husband, soon would the thought have stolen into the Devil’s mind, how she who had known no man could be pregnant. It was right that the conception should be Divine, something more exalted than human nature.
Origen
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