ABSTRACT
For the angel who endows with grace receives her faith in return. To this virgin God sends a winged suitor, who gives a pledge and takes up a dowry. The angel thus puts the affection Mary had for her husband-to-be on hold, not in order to take the virgin away from Joseph, but to hand her over to Christ to whom she was already pledged while she herself was in the womb of her mother. Zechariah will not believe in God’s plan, despite previous instances, while Mary comes quickly to believe, even though she knows of no other example. She marvels that a virgin can conceive a child, while he doubts it can happen even though he is married. The evangelist therefore states: “The angel Gabriel was sent from the Lord 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”.
