Note: As a personal, spiritual discipline, reviving my practice in the Lenten season of 2017, I revise the prayers I wrote then for each of the forty days of this Lent; each petition focusing on a theme, a concern weighing on my mind and heart or a care of my soul and spirit.
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On the Annunciation (being a mediation on Luke 1.26-38)…
O Jesus, Gabriel, messenger of God, appeared to Your Mother-to-be, the Blessed Virgin Mary, saying, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you,” proclaiming Your coming birth.
O Jesus, I pray that this angelic announcement rekindle my faith that You, through Your Spirit, alway are conceived in the womb of my soul that, in my living and doing, I may bear the likeness of Your lovingkindness in the world.
Amen.
Illustration: The Annunciation (1898), Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937). Note: Of the many depictions of the Annunciation, I favor Tanner’s. In historical part, for he is one of the first African American painters to gain international renown. In artistic part, for his imaginative visualization of the angel Gabriel not in human form, but rather as a vertical white line of celestial luminescence and of Mary with a posture and countenance that capture her wonderment in doubtful expectation.
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 