Tag Archives: "Annunciation"

Mary’s Moment of Choice

By Robin Bates | Published: December 23, 2023

Levertov’s “Annunciation” and a Christmas Eve message.

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Giving Birth, a Leap of Faith

By Robin Bates | Published: May 7, 2022

In Merton’s poem about the Annunciation, Mary chooses to bring a child into an uncertain world. That leap of faith is an expression of hope.

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Light beyond Sun and Words

By Robin Bates | Published: March 23, 2019

Spiritual Sunday Tomorrow being the Annunciation–Christians believe the Holy Spirit visited Mary nine months before December 25–I share a series of poems on the subject by Lucille Clifton, that most motherly of poets. In “a song of mary,” Clifton captures the ordinariness of Mary’s life before Jesus, even as there are princes “sitting on thrones […]

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Mary’s Irrational Decision to Have Jesus

By Robin Bates | Published: December 18, 2011

As Madeleine L’Engle writes, “Had Mary been filled with reason/There’d been no room for the child.”

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Motherhood, an Astounding Ministry

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2010

Annunciation, Philippe de Champaigne (1644)     Spiritual Sunday Here’s a poem by Denise Levertov for Mother’s Day.  I dedicate it to my own mother and to the mother that I’m married to.  I also dedicate is to Maurine Holbert-Hogaboom, at whose funeral I read it ten days ago.  It was one of her favorites. Levertov imagines […]

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