Lourdes 2025 (1/5) Discover Marie through her prayer

An extraordinary destiny … on which we know almost nothing! When the angel Gabriel addresses Marie, he did it to a simple young woman from Judea, who follows the habits and customs of her time: “A virgin young girl, granted in marriage to a man from David’s house, called Joseph; And the name of the girl was Marie ”(LC 1, 26-27).

The circumstances of his birth and childhood are not reported more in the Scriptures. Only Jacques’ protevangile (apocryphal story written around the year 150, and not appearing in the biblical corpus) tries to fill this gap, giving a miraculous coloring to the story.

Like Marie, her mother, Anne, is the subject of a visitation: an angel announces that despite her sterility, she will soon give birth. Named in Hebrew Myriam (“loved by God”), Mary would have been, from the outset, the object of a particular divine solicitude. What the dogma of the Immaculate Conception will formulate in a different way, declaring that the Virgin was born free from original sin.

Marie speaks for the first time during the Annunciation: “How will it happen since I don’t know a man?” (LC 1, 34). Before adding: “Let everything from my word” (LC 1, 38). “The Fiat of Mary is an act of total faith, without conditions or claims,” supports the biblist Marie-Noëlle Thabut.

By freely accepting the divine project, Mary is part of the long covenant between God and the Hebrew people. The greeting of the angel (“The Lord is with you”) underlines this parentage. “I am with you,” said God to Jacob (GN 28, 15), or to Moses (ex 3, 12). “This sentence often appears in vocation stories. She undoubtedly helped Marie to understand that the angel announced a particular vocation to her, ”she continues.

Similarly, in the Magnificat (LC 1, 46-55), the daughter of Israel is expressed through the words of her ancestors in faith. “I print with joy in the Lord, my soul exults in my God,” already proclaims the book of Isaiah (61, 10). “His mercy extends from age to age,” exclaims Marie, taking up a word for a word for Psalm 99.

“Marie is an example of availability and confidence,” concludes Marie-Noëlle Thabut. By his side, the recitation of the I greets you Marie and the Magnificat “plunges us back into the benevolent design of God.”