At the Edge of the Annunciation

At the edge of Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, Adam and Eve are being driven from paradise. Gabriel enters the portico, while Mary sits opposite him with her arms crossed and an open book resting on her lap. In the far-left garden, Adam and Eve walk beneath flourishing trees, clothed in animal skins as an angel ushers them onward. Flowers bloom around them, and fruit still hangs heavy from the branches.

Eden remains beautiful even as they pass beyond it. Above them, a pair of divine hands releases a glorious ray. Follow it across the panel and you will see a dove, the Holy Spirit, travelling within it towards Mary. Her open book recalls Isaiah’s promise that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, and she would call His name Immanuel: God with us.

The garden reveals the glorious meaning of this encounter. It holds humanity’s deepest pain: we rejected God, our life source and our home, and entered exile. In Mary’s humble reception of the divine Word, that exile begins to reverse.

God comes to humanity. The eternal Word enters the womb. God enters flesh and enters our exile so that He may bring us home. At one edge of the painting, humanity leaves the garden; at its centre, God begins the journey that will lead humanity back.

God, by Your Word You created all things, and through Your Word You redeemed them. You entered our exile and opened the way home. Thank you.

I turn my attention to this flourishing garden, filled with flowers, fruit and abundant life. I receive it as an image of the life for which humanity was created and the life Jesus restores.

Today, I will pause before one growing thing and remember the glory of the life to come.