site.btaChurch Celebrates Feast of Annunciation on March 25
On March 25, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation of the Mother of God. It commemorates the announcement by the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God, would become incarnate and enter into this world through her womb.
The biblical story of the Feast of the Annunciation is found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke (1:26-39). The Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her not to be afraid, for she had found favour with God. He said, “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus”.
According to Luke 1:26 the Annunciation occurred in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy with John the Baptist. Many Christians observe this event with the Feast of the Annunciation on 25 March, an approximation of the northern vernal equinox nine full months before Christmas, the traditional birthday of Jesus.
The Feast of the Annunciation is observed almost universally throughout Christianity, especially within the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism.
It is a major Marian feast, celebrated by mothers who regard the Theotokos as their patroness. The first certain mentions of the feast are in a canon, of the Council of Toledo in 656, where it was described as celebrated throughout the Church. It is part of the Lenten and Pascal Cycle.
The feast is associated with the spring equinox and the coming spring, and therefore is traditionally accompanied by “green” dishes containing nettles, spinach, chard and herbs. Fish is also a traditional presence and buns smeared in honey are handed out to relatives and neighbours to "sweeten" their day, as the Bulgarian equivalent for the feast’s name means “sweet tidings”. Popular beliefs also include the coming of cuckoos and swallows who bring the glad tidings that winter has gone away, or that saplings planted on this day will bear sweet fruit.
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