It is no accident, for instance, that the Gospels provide no physical description of Jesus (let alone his mother Mary). They omit as much not because Jesus didn’t have a specific appearance (certainly he did), but because his physical appearance wasn’t tantamount to the meaning of his mission, and because, in a written account of that mission (on which we want to contemplate and dwell, as it contributes to our sanctity, and to the conversion of our souls), such a description might produce distractions, confusions, and unforeseen divisions.

The reason being that the intent of the Evangelists, in these instances, is to draw our attention to a meaning that is unaffected by the distractions that inevitably pertain to too concrete or ‘fleshed out’ a recounting of an event, even if, in other genres of writing, such a recounting would be warranted, even helpful.

Which isn’t to say that events in the Gospels don’t have a singular or specific meaning, but that, where singular or specific details are omitted from the descriptions of events, we’d be unwise to attempt to imagine too fixedly the configuration of those events, or the precise manner of their unfolding.

Meaning, the absence of specificity in that episode of Luke’s narrative allows for such a possibility. The beauty of the writing of the Gospels is very often found in its restraint, and the variety of its implication.

Though I should say, also, that ‘instant’ is my word, and perhaps the appearance of Gabriel to Our Lady, and the substance of the conversation between the two, as related in the Gospel, was not instantaneous so much as gradual, like a dawning, or a slow elucidation.

That vein of Mariology which is to be found in the artistic traditions (especially painting), and whose subject is the Annunciation, often depicts Mary with her hands folded in prayer, but sometimes with an open book beside her, or in her lap, as if she’d been studying Scripture.

Does this mean that Our Lady was praying, at the instant that Gabriel appeared to her? Possibly, though not necessarily. Scripture does not specify anything further than that Mary was in “a city of Galilee, named Nazareth”, was “espoused to a man whose name was Joseph”, and that the angel “came in unto her”. Perhaps she was alone, in a room inside a house, engaged in some ordinary task.

Meaning, the action that a person engenders, in response to circumstance, will, when that person has developed a habit of prayer, be ordered not by the baseness of instinct, or self-gratification, or even self-preservation, but by the sanctity of conscientiousness, which is a consequence of discernment.

Though when I say “remains like that”, I do not mean that nothing will come of the discernment itself. The discernment will bring about action, and in fact will order and direct it.

My point being, I suppose, that one way of understanding Our Lady, and then of emulating her, is by developing the habit of prayer. Which begins with a loving submission to the will of God, and remains like that, in a state of constant discernment.

Which isn’t to say that, in the case of Mary, this integrity isn’t also more than the consequence of a prayerful spirit, for probably it is (in the sense that she is uniquely holy among all humankind, as evidenced by the words with which Gabriel greets her, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women”), but that this integrity is at least that (the consequence of prayer).

Meaning, the integrity of her response to Gabriel (when he tells her that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, and that she will bear a child, who will be called the Son of God, though she is yet a virgin) is evidenced by her fidelity to that response in all the years of her life that follow. And it is the understanding of the Church that such integrity is a consequence of a prayerful or recollected spirit.

“Be it done to me according to thy word,” Our Lady says, and her entire life from that point forward is a carrying out, or confirmation, of that imperative.

On the other hand, look at Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel, at the Annunciation, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke, for an example of a deed that is straightforwardly good, and in harmony with the motive that produces it.

Consider the kiss with which Judas betrays Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane. In appearance it would seem good, in that it would convey fellowship or love. But its motive is ugly, or anyway duplicitous; the deed is not straightforward, it does not reflect its own intention.

Though I will add that a deed can seem good but not be good, if that which brings it about is a distorted or impure motive, in the soul of the doer.

For there are no good deeds but those which are first formed in prayer, even if a doer of such deeds is unaware of their own prayerful spirit.

Of course, God intervenes in history as He sees fit, with or without our prayers. But insofar as God’s will is that we participate in the unfolding of His plan (which we call ‘Providence’) by the action of our will, under our own freedom (which is his great gift to us, as it differentiates us from the beasts), we increase the good in the world through prayer, and we increase the evil in the world through a lack of prayer, or an antipathy toward it.

Which isn’t to say that a plea made to Christ, or to God the Father, or to any conception of God (so long as that conception is earnestly and sincerely formed), won’t be heard, for it will be, but only that God has determined that his saints in general, and the Mother of his Incarnate Son in particular, play a role in drawing us to Him, so that we might discern His will for us; and that this role, to a large extent, involves the receiving or channeling of our prayers.

One might wonder, incidentally, why pray to Our Lady (or to any of the saints) when one can pray directly to Christ, or to God the Father (or to some other, less orthodox, conception of the Godhead). And the answer is that while one can do whatever one pleases, according to one’s will, one will discover, if one participates in the life of the Church, that the communion of saints (and, to a greater extent, the person of Our Lady) has, over time, been revealed to be integral to the salvific mission of the Church, with regard to both the individual and the world.