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9 T H E A N N U N C I AT I O N after the painting by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1485 Having taken the bodily shape of a man, Gabriel is struck by the weight of the news he delivers upon entering the threshold where Mary kneels, cloistered in the room beyond; the spoken words nearly making the archangel stumble, his cape trailing behind him. A gilded ray of light radiates above his upturned wings and the sprig of lilies he cradles in his left hand; the transparent plane of his halo holding a constellation of golden stars; his right hand pulling up his gown to brace his bowing in obeisance. Upon hearing his greeting, Mary is troubled, and begins to draw the folds of her blue cloak across her breast into converging shadow; the arc of her halo like a divine hand placed behind the white veil over her head. Is this not how we respond to first hearing any rejoicing, especially a message that awakens in us the beginning of understanding, of a life’s path unimagined, 10 or if imagined, then unrealized? How do we accept what is miraculous, other than by looking through the portals of the vestibule where Gabriel is about to bend to his knees, where the life beyond informs us with the voice of the words we hear, and as Mary waits for what she is to become, we listen as the one expectant? ...

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