Our Shadows

Today the Gospel speaks of this next announcement of the Angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The angel announces many things to Mary but one thing he mentions is that the Holy Spirit will overshadow the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This word is very specific and when using specific biblical context the meaning of this will make so more sense. A shadow is something we see not so much when it is dark but more so when there is light out.

We often head into the shade to save ourselves from the elements of being outside. We head into the shade to escape the beams of the direct sunlight to avoid being burned. We retreat into shade and protection to be protected from rain or snow. Overall, we aim into the shade because we find it to be a place of protection, a place we can rest, and a place we can travel under until we make it to our destination.

This shade is not to be confused with darkness. The dark is a place of hiding and the absence of light and shade is a place of retreat and safety.

This announcement to Mary was contingent or relying on her Yes to God’s invitation. It was only after she desired to do the will of God and be the handmaid of the Lord was she led under the shadow and protection of God.

By Mary’s yes, she placed herself under the light of the World, her son, Jesus Christ and therefore, she also casted a shadow— not a shadow of gloom but a shadow that gave life to the world. We also can cast shadows out into the world and we know this by the story of another character in the Bible: St Peter.

On that gloomy day when Christ was arrested and put to trial, St Peter was called to testify to Christ, the Light of the World, and asked if he knew Jesus. Once Peter denied three times this invitation to give a testimony to the truth, he drove himself even more deeply in the dark. Instead of giving a shadow of life and light, Peter was thrust in the darkness and despair of what it looks like to not do the will of God. However, after Peter’s conversion and repentance, he was brought back into light. And, in the book of Acts, Peter went out and testified fearlessly in the name of Jesus. Now, he gave off a new shadow.

It was said that people even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them down so that as peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them and they might be healed. This is not by the light that originated in Peter but from Christ through the shadow of Peter.

Today, we ask ourselves this question, what shadow we cast into the world? If it is a shadow of lifelessness, anxiety, and fear, it is because we are far from the will of God and what he wants us to do. Let us retreat then, into the shadow of the Cross of Light, present always in the church, ready to do anything God is asking of us, that we can be instruments of God’s light and life into the world.