Even if you have never read this passage before we certainly have seen portrayed in films, painted on Christmas cards and re-enacted in plays. That is why it is easy for us to over-romanticise it and to forget the utter shock it must have been to Mary and eventually Joseph to hear what the angel had to say. God not only upset their plans with an unimaginable gift but saying yes was to cause them some difficulties. In a tight knit religious society, how do you explain that you are yet unmarried and pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit? Yet this is what the implications were for this young couple. However they obeyed God and through Our Lady, Jesus our Saviour came into the world to save us. Soon you will be visiting the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, built on the top of the archaeological remains of Our Lady's home. There you will see inscribed in Latin 'Verbum caro hic factum est'. The Word was made flesh here! What a privilege to be at the same place.