When we think about the Annunciation, this scene between the angel Gabriel and Mary, we think of the faith it took for her to believe that she would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit and that her son, the illegitimate child of an insignificant girl, really would have a throne and a kingdom. But I wonder: If I had been in her place, which would be harder for me to believe: The part about a virgin giving birth to a king? Or the part where the angel said I was favored? …I’d be like, you’ve got the wrong girl.

But here’s where Mary had some real chops. She heard outrageous things from an angel and she didn’t say…“Let me get back to you.” She…said “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary trusted the word from the angel, telling her that she was favored. And maybe that trust is what made her favored.

We have no idea what Mary was like before the angel visited her, but…I seriously doubt that she made herself into a girl whom God could favor because she took the advice of her youth rabbi and lived the way she should. …[N]owhere does it say that the angel Gabriel just waited and waited [to find] a girl who had diligently worked on her virtues hard enough that she had made herself worthy to be the Godbearer. I mean, if the way God seems to favor prostitutes and tax collectors and adulterous kings over the smug, righteous, and powerful is any indication, then I think it’s safe to assume that it is God’s nature to look upon young peasant girls with favor…

So maybe the really outrageous act of faith on Mary’s part was trusting that she had found favor with God.  This, it seems to me, is a vital and overlooked miracle of the Annunciation story. Yet instead, we prefer to focus on what virtues we think Mary must have had so that we can cultivate them in ourselves and maybe make our own selves worthy of God.

Hail Mary full of virtue, the Lord is with thee?

No. Hail Mary, full of GRACE, the Lord is with thee, the prayer goes.

Grace.  The one thing you simply cannot earn.

I think that this is exactly what Mary understood: That what qualifies us for God’s grace isn’t our goodness – what qualifies us for God’s grace is nothing more than our need for God’s grace.