Today's liturgy in the classical Prayer Book tradition carries neither collect nor readings for the Conception. The psalms, readings, and collects of this second week in Advent continue. This reflects how the Blessed Virgin Mary is quietly held before us in the Anglican tradition as the exemplar of what it is to "inwardly digest" the Advent hope through the reading of Scripture. Each day at Evensong, when the Magnificat is said or sung after the First Lesson from the Old Testament or Apocrypha, we are placed alongside this Daughter of Sion in rejoicing in the fulfilment of Yahweh's promises to Israel, for of her "was born Jesus, who is called Christ" (Matthew 1:16).
In Advent, this saying or singing of the Magnificat after the First Lesson assumes a particular significance. It is the anthem of ransomed Israel, the joyous proclamation that the ancient prayer veni, veni Emmanuel was answered, is answered, and will be answered. As the book of the Prophet Isaiah is read at Mattins and Evensong in these days of Advent, the Magnificat is the model of how, through the reading of Holy Scripture, "we may embrace, and ever hold fast" the Advent hope proclaimed by the Prophet. And so Wheatly states in his commentary on the Prayer Book:
For as the holy Virgin, when she reflected upon the promises of the Old Testament, now about to be fulfilled in the mysterious conception and happy birth, of which God had designed her to be the instrument, expressed her joy in this form; so we, when we hear in the Lessons like examples of his mercy, and are told of those prophecies and promises which were then fulfilled, may not improperly rejoice with her in the same words, as having a proportionable share of interest in the fame blessing.
This points us to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a model for the Church's reading of Scripture, particularly during these days of Advent. Augustine reminds us that Mary's experience of the Advent of the Lord was principally because she heard and inwardly digested the word of God:
it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ. It means more for her, an altogether greater blessing, to have been Christ's disciple than to have been Christ's mother ... So that is why Mary, too, is blessed, because she heard the word of God and kept it. She kept truth safe in her mind even better than she kept flesh safe in her womb. Christ is truth, Christ is flesh; Christ as truth was in Mary's mind, Christ as flesh in Mary's womb; that which is in the mind is greater than what is carried in the womb.
The heart of classical Anglican reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary - the Magnificat at Evensong - is a manifestation of this teaching of Augustine. To 'hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest' the Scriptures, and thus being renewed in the "blessed hope" of Advent, is how the Church most authentically reverences the Blessed Virgin Mary. And this is done quietly. A loud Marian festival in the midst of Advent, based on a brash Marian dogmatic definition, obscures this most authentic reverence. As Newman said in a sermon of the 1830s, noting of Scripture that "in this silence we find instruction, as much as in the mention of her":
Observe the lesson which we gain for ourselves from the history of the Blessed Virgin; that the highest graces of the soul may be matured in private ... The aids which God gives under the Gospel Covenant, have power to renew and purify our hearts, without uncommon providences to discipline us into receiving them. God gives His Holy Spirit to us silently; and the silent duties of every day (it may be humbly hoped) are blest to the sufficient sanctification of thousands, whom the world knows not of. The Blessed Virgin is a memorial of this; and it is consoling as well as instructive to know it.
Our quiet commemoration of her Conception reminds us of how the example of the Daughter of Sion, above all her words of praise to the God of Israel in the Magnificat, encourages us in the quiet discipline of Advent, to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the prophetic and apostolic Writings, for "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope".
(The painting is a detail from Filippo Lippi's 'Annunciation', 1448-1450.)
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