This suite was sketched during my Advent 1999 retreat, and comes out of the experience of sitting with aspects of the story of the Annunciation during that retreat.

The annunciation (Luke 1, 26–38)) appears near the beginning of Luke’s gospel, and tells the story of the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary telling her that she, though virgin, will bear the son of God. My exploration was mostly about playing myself into the story as different characters. I find it hard to think of Mary as the perfect lady in the immaculate blue dress and gleaming halo, and instead I found myself resonating with Mary the unmarried pregnant teenager, fearful and alone.

Luke’s gospel was written many years after the events it describes, and his description of the annunciation may simply express, in figurative terms, Mary’s growing realisation — and her struggle with that realisation — over an extended period. I spent some of the time with an icon of the annunciation in which Mary’s expression is one of pain and distress, not of joy — the call to be pregnant with God, to be overshadowed with God — is profoundly disturbing and disorientating. Mary’s final acceptance, though it brings one episode to an end, opens another door to a continuing pain, for the reader knows that her walk with the son of God takes her to the foot of the cross, before taking her beyond it.

This suite does not attempt to tell the story of the annunciation as such, but does draw on what moved me at different stages in my journey with this mystery. The movements play continuously, as an unfolding set of reflections.