It is very fitting to contemplate the mystery of the Annunciation in the light of the mystery of Creation. The Annunciation is the beginning of Redemption and therefore the new Creation, when all things begin to be made anew. God spoke and things were created. God pronounced His Fiat and all creatures were made. God speaks again at the Incarnation of His Son, and the Word becomes flesh. It is the Triune God who speaks and says Fiat at the beginning of humankind and at its restoration.
Three Persons were at work in Creation, and the same Three Persons are at work at the Annunciation, through Mary, who consequently pronounces her Fiat in a triune way, in response to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our Mother at the Annunciation says her Fiat in response to God’s will to become incarnate and thus to restore the disobedience of the first woman, who instead pronounced a counter-fiat, a sinful no. Mary, at the very start of salvation, is already our Mother Co-redemptrix, the One who cooperated with Christ in our salvation.
Moreover, as the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of creation to bring about order, life, and light, so He now hovers over the new creation, the Immaculate Mother, and envelops her with the power of His love. Mary thus becomes the Theotokos.
As everything comes to us from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, so that the Son could become incarnate in Mary, so everything returns to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, but now with Mary, through her salvific Fiat.
Let us consecrate ourselves to Mary our Mother, to be enveloped by the Holy Spirit in her Fiat. If we say with her our own Fiat, we are saved; we are secure forever. God takes flesh in us. Amen.
Fr Serafino M. Lanzetta
Below you can listen to the podcast that Fr Serafino dedicated to the topic of “Creation and Annunciation in the unity of God’s and Mary’s Fiat”: