Cause of our Joy

Oil on CAnvas with Goldleaf

© 2021 Adelaine Nohara.
Oil painting entitled Cause of Our Joy. Our Lady of the Annunciation, overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, at the ecstatic moment of the Incarnation. The archway reads "Ancilla Domini" (Handmaid of the Lord).
“Cause of Our Joy”

This image depicts Our Lady in the sacred moments after the Annunciation. The archway behind her reads, “Ancilla Domini”, which is Latin for “Handmaid of the Lord”.

I can only imagine that Our Lady’s joy was indescribable as the Holy Spirit alighted upon her, and in an ecstasy beyond all telling embraced her body and soul, conceiving within her immaculate womb the Son of God.

We may truly call Mary the “Cause of Our Joy” because her FIAT – her “Yes, let it be done” to the Divine Will gave us Jesus. We would not have Christ, the New Adam, without Mary, the New Eve, who freely consented to mother Him, not knowing what her future would bring on His account. Giving her FIAT was an incredible act of faith in God’s providence and protection.

Surely, the Angel’s parting words, “For with God nothing will be impossible” gave wings to her faith and peace to her heart in the midst of such a dramatic request: to be the mother of the Messiah in a hostile world.

Like Mary, we all receive requests from God; some dramatic, and some altogether mundane and seemingly ordinary. Regardless of the apparent greatness or littleness of God’s calls on our lives, we learn, from our mystical Mother, that surrender to the Divine Will is the soil in which our joy comes to fruition; for God’s invitations are always invitations to conceive and nourish the life of Christ within our souls, and to give Him, like Mary, to the world.