She is remembering now what she has stored up in her heart all these years. It began the first time she experienced the Light that is God. It dwelled inside the angel’s words, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). That is what happened in the very moment of the angel’s speaking. And she embraced the light that was the words themselves. She said yes to so beautiful a proposal, its light, its love. And she said simply that she was God’s handmaid. May it be done to her according to God’s word spoken by the angel. And the Light then filled her whole being. And the angel left her alone with the light illumining her womb.
— from the book Nourishing Love: A Franciscan Celebration of Mary
by Murray Bodo, OFM