Details, details… When reading the scriptures, it can be easy to gloss over little details that seem to be insignificant or repetitive. Very often, we need a great saint or insightful person to shake us out of whatever stupor we are in when reading the sacred words so that the full meaning can flow from the fountain of life that is the divine Word. One example of this happening to me comes in that most well known of passages: the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke.
In the first chapter of Luke, we hear of the Archangel Gabriel visiting the virgin named Mary to ask for her consent to be the mother of God. Mary humbly asks, “How can this be, since I do not know man?” (Lk 1:34). Luke records this as the response: “The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God’” (Lk 1:35). Simple enough. Still, whenever I read this passage, I tend to conflate the two actions of God here into one phrase, seeing them as simply parallel lines: The Holy Spirit will overshadow you.
There is nothing wrong with reading this verse the way I just described. It is possible to interpret them as a Jewish way of speaking in parallel, repetitive phrases to emphasize a point. We see that all the time in the Psalms, and in like manner, Luke could simply be highlighting the power of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. In my case, I did not even consider another way of reading them until I came across a commentary passage in the writings of St. Bonaventure.
St. Bonaventure clearly sees this verse as describing two actions of God: One action: the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary; and a second, simultaneous action: the power of the Most High overshadowing her. Near the beginning of his short work, The Tree of Life, St. Bonaventure explains, “When she gave her consent to him, the Holy Spirit came upon her like a divine fire inflaming her soul and sanctifying her flesh in perfect purity. But the power of the Most High overshadowed her (Luke 1:35) so that she could endure such fire.” In this fascinating description, St. Bonaventure sees God as both descending upon Mary to incarnate the Son of God in her womb, and at the same time, powerfully accustoming her to receive the Divine presence of God in perfect peace, enduring the fire of God’s life and love.
As an addition here too, I cannot help but be reminded of the invocation to the Holy Spirit in the prayer to the Holy Trinity by St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. St. Elizabeth calls out to the Holy Spirit, recognizing that His desire for each of us is to become little “Christs” in the world, Christians in name and in truth. She prays, “O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, overshadow me so that the Word may be, as it were, incarnate again in my soul. May I be for him a new humanity in which he can renew all his mystery.” Though only the Blessed Virgin Mary was privileged to bear Jesus bodily in her womb and to be his mother in the flesh, every Christian is called to bear Jesus to the world by being a member of his body and living His life, death, and resurrection in the world in our own lives. He chooses to come to the world in us and through us, and he joins us to his body by the power of the Holy Spirit, ordinarily working through the sacraments.
The Holy Spirit once came upon Mary and the power of the Most High overshadowed her. May that same Holy Spirit come upon our Church to fill us with the fire of his life and his love. May he draw us ever more deeply into the mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son. May we rejoice at the birth of our King, and may he be born ever anew in our hearts and in our lives. Come, Lord Jesus! Come, Holy Spirit! Lead us to the Father!