Brother Anselm writes:
>>>In short:
Mary heard the Word of God (so perfectly that)
The Word took flesh in her womb
That is the point of the Angelus:
The Angel of the Lord said to Mary ( trad: declared )
Adn she conceived, of the Holy Spirit ( trad: Ghost )<<<
That is it, exactly. How silly of me not to have remembered the most
perfect authority.
And Mary is not only the best at hearing the word of God; she is usually
depicted in that scene as reading the word of God from a book. Her look of
surprise (as in Leonardo's _Annunciation_, just the one I happen to have on
my wall) is that of a reader whose text has taken flesh, both in the form
of the angel and in the form of a child in her womb. So she is the perfect
reader and the perfect listener. Even St. Augustine can't match this
skill: he had to be bidden to read. For him, the voice had to come before
the text, not through it.
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