Annunciation of the Lord

Today we don’t celebrate a person but a moment: the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. The date isn’t random, and it’s one of the most elegant calculations in the Christian calendar: exactly nine months before Christmas. By that reckoning, March 25 is the day when everything that will end on December 25 begins. The Gospels tell it in two different ways, and it’s worth noticing. In Matthew the angel appears to Joseph in a dream, to tell him to keep his wife with him: and you can see why, since Matthew was writing for Christians who had come from Judaism, who wanted to know how a righteous man should behave before the law in a situation like that. In Luke, instead, the angel enters Mary’s house and speaks to her: and that’s the scene we all have in mind, because it’s the one painters have been painting for a thousand years. In some regions the feast was called Conceptio Domini, and for centuries March 25 was New Year’s Day in half of Europe: in Florence the year began today until 1750. The Smorfia puts the Madonna at number eight. If your name is Annunziata, Nunzia or Nunzio, today is your name day — and in Naples it’s a very common name, because of the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata Maggiore.