The man simply appeared. He had not approached by foot. She had heard no one coming and surely she would have. He appeared there as if he had preceded her, waiting for her. But she had not seen him, or heard him. She was afraid. She wanted to flee but her legs would not move. He made no attempt to touch her, he just stood there, looking at her as if-- as if it were she and not he, who had suddenly and mysteriously appeared, as if it were she who were the apparition to be feared, as if she, not he, were the subject of awe. What beautiful eyes; Mary thought without fear.

He spoke, "Be comforted, child." He appeared to be about ten years her senior. Not a man of ancient years, although he was. Not a man of maturity and command, although he was that, too. He bore no semblance of opulence, no airs, no attitude of superiority. He was simply a man, unspectacular, unassuming. Intuitively, Mary knew this was no ordinary man. "God has chosen you above all women, Mary," he said quietly. He waited as the soft sound of the brook splashed and rippled. It was an appropriate sound, making itself heard with poignant moment. "In this you are highly honored. You are favored as no other." The magnitude of this simple declaration did not register for the child.

"I - I do not understand," she stammered. "Who are you?" Even more important, her heart inquired, What are you? Unanswering, his eyes danced with the twilight. He smiled. Whatever anxiety may have stalked her retreated, replaced with expectancy. Why have you come? A question of thought, reluctant to make its way to her tongue.

Sensing her expectancy he said, "I have splendid news for you, child." He spoke to her as a father, yet he was not. He waited. He wanted her to hunger, to seek, to demand what he had to say. It did not take long.

In the pressing necessity of her heart, she begged, peremptorily: Please!

He had thought of a thousand ways in which what he had to say could be said. He wanted to announce it to the sound of trumpets and the race of stars across the heavens. He wanted to make an event of it. These urgings stirred powerfully in his heart but in the end he stated simply, "You are to bear a child." Mary's heart stopped. Questions, unformed, unintelligible, bubbled in her mind. "A son. You will call his name--Jesus!" She had been standing but at this, she dropped to her knees and then sat on the grass. She was confused, undone and terrified. It was not his appearance, nor the tone of his voice that unsettled her, but the import in his speech. Weakly, she stammered,

"I cannot . . ."

"Mary," he continued, each syllable in sweet velvet, "Your son will be very great. He will be the Son of the Most High God." And then the man appeared to succumb to transcendent ecstasy and uttered words that seemed to her as lyrics of a song, soaring beyond her comprehension,

It was then that Mary realized that this man is something other than a man. An intimation? A subtle emanation? A verisimilitude of superhuman life? However construed, it caused her to cry out within herself, "He is an angel of God!"

"Um!" She swallowed hard in adolescent agitation. "Um!" Again. The emotion of the moment took her voice away. Questions came hard into exclamations, "I have never been with--a man!" This, the premise upon which all else was considered. Mary, just preparing to visit her sixteenth year, knew how babies were made. I am betrothed! Instantly, she thought of Joseph. Whatever the angel meant, she somehow understood that Joseph was not a part of it. "How can this happen?" said she. How can this be? She inquired not of the possibility, but of the process. But in her heart, she visited deference and in that submission, discovered acceptance.

He, as actuated by emotion as she. This, his highest moment, the zenith of the purpose for which he had been created in lost millennia past. However restive his exultation, his words did not betray him. With perfect lucidity he proclaimed, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, child. And the power of the Highest will overshadow you." He took a deep breath, "That holy thing born of you shall be called the Son of God." Mary could not speak. A moment passed. They sat quietly. The soothing stillness of evening, like a mother's reassuring hand, extended its calm.

He spoke again in words more subdued. "The wife of Zechariah the priest has conceived a son. She is already in her sixth month." Elizabeth? I've not seen or heard in months . . ? He took a few steps and sat upon a rock. Resting his hands on his knees he continued, "She is very old. For how many years has she been taunted as barren by ignorant, unfeeling people! Now she is with child. You must believe, Mary, nothing is impossible with God."

The child had nothing to say, nothing to ask. She felt compassion for this sweet man, this angelic creature who had brought her such words. Silent moments passed between them, he, sitting on the rock, she upon the grass. In her face one could see signs of resignation. Hesitating, she put her hand out to him, touching him, "Let it be done to me as you have said. I wait on the Lord--as a bride--waits for her husband." Only the Father could know what Mary was thinking. How would she become impregnated? It no longer mattered. If this is what God wanted, if He chose to honor her in this manner, she was ready. She withdrew her hand. His head lowered, hands squeezing his knees, relaxing and then squeezing again. "What is your name?" She asked softly. He lifted his eyes and looked at her, seeing the light of love in her eyes. She smiled, as sweet as rain upon a violet.

He sat erect and as if answering the question of royalty instead of that of a peasant girl. He spoke, "My name is Gabriel." And with that, he was gone.

Mary's thoughts flickered through her mind like the butterflies she loved. How was this to happen? When? How would she explain it to her mother? Her father? And Joseph? How would he--how could he!--react to news like this? She felt trapped between unspeakable ecstasy and terrible convolution.

A quiet girl, yet playful, quick to laugh, content with simple things; the angelic visit still vivid in her thoughts, she relived, she tasted each delicious word. She found herself repeating over and over "How can this be?" Her eyes lay softly upon the stars peeking through purpling evening song hushed. She wondered what lived beyond the stars.

It was not abrupt, nor disruptively sudden, but it was instantaneous. Softly, tenderly, Mary felt warmth surround her as if her mother had just covered her with a blanket on a winter's night. In her body, in her soul, in the very focus of her being--that eternal part of her--now touched Something beyond anything she had known or ever would know again.

Beyond the stars, from a point somewhere in Eternity, he moved toward earth. The world, life and human history waited. It would never be the same.

Jacob was once touched like this and became a cripple. Mary became pregnant, knowing only that she had been known.

Her mother's worried eyes. Her father's frown. Of course they had worried. She would herself one day understand what it was like to fret over the disappearance of a child. Her mother's chiding words were, of course, compulsory, but distant and ineffectual. She quickly sensed her child's serenity and yielded the need to disapprove. Questions could wait until morning. Mary was home and safe. That was all that mattered.

Just before slumber claimed the child, as her eyes watched the crescent moon through her window rise toward its zenith, a thought came. The fulfillment of all time had begun, in her.

Her secret was secure for the moment.