Lady Day

One benefit of winter's continued presence here, in the desolate heart of this North American continent, is that, now that we've had a week off for Spring Break, one can immediately distinguish between the tanned, crazed, oversexed, overliquored, improvident hedonists (who spent the last week in brighter climes) and the God-fearing, upstanding, abstemious, frugal and very pale Puritans, surely God's Elect (who didn't have the money to traipse off to Texas or Mexico or Florida or a similar place of higher crime rates and insufficient government regulation). I, for one, appreciate the convenience of being able to distinguish between the two at a glance. It certainly saves the time and effort of getting to know people.

The weather makes it difficult to believe that Lady Day is already upon us. (For some reason I am reminded of the O'Hara poem "The Day Lady Died", though that was in July. And Billie Holiday has no connection to the Theotokos, so far as I am aware.) I am continually astonished — indeed, my mouth must be perpetually agape — that the Church does not make terribly much of the Feast of the Annunciation. Why, it seems to me that it should be a bigger celebration than Christmas, don't you think? Babies are born with some regularity; while Jesus's birth was a good thing (I suppose), a birth is a rather ordinary event, in the grand scheme of things. But the very beginning of the Incarnation? Well. It just seems a bit more unusual. The Nicene Creed (or, if we're to be pedantic — and when have we ever turned up the chance to be pedantic? — the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) emphasizes the Incarnation, and indeed, that's the spot in the Creed where one kneels (or, if one is Episcopalian, bows, or looks around confusedly, or does nothing whatsoëver; I believe all options are encouraged in Episcopal rubrics).

For obvious reasons the Annunciation is one of the most popular images in Christian Art. There is an extraordinary variety of very good paintings, woodcuts, windows, sculptures, et alia that depict the moment. I am very fond of Dürer's (as always), and Fra Angelico's, but my current favorite is the version of Henry Ossawa Tanner.