A Theological Reflection
The Annunciation
ca 1290-1300
German; Made in Altenberg-an-der-Lahn, Hesse
The Cloisters Collection, 1993 (1993.251.1,2)
On the ANGELUS
"Angelus" is the Latin opening word of the first line of the prayer - 'the angel (angelus) of the Lord declared unto Mary' Many medieval writings on our Lady uniformly began with the two Latin words missus est. In English these words are 'was sent,' the beginning of Luke's story of the Annunciation: 'In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God.'
The widely reproduced painting in the Louvre, The Angelus by J.f. Millet (1814-1875) shows a farmer and his wife, bowing in prayer as the day wanes. He holds his hat in his hand; they are standing in a field, a wheelbarow with sacks of grain at their side, in the foreground a pitchfork and the basket that held their lunch. In the distance can be seen the steeple of the village church, its bell presumably ringing out the evening Angelus.
Although there are many places in both old world and new, even big cities, where the Angelus is still rung, if not three times daily, in popular imagination 'ringing the Angelus' still evokes a rural picture, as in Millet. City bells have become more associated with town halls and banks, than churches and monasteries. Yet, the prayer of the Angelus is still worthy of note and practise. As recently as 1974 a substantial section of the great letter of Paul VI, marialis cultus is devoted to the Angelus. And, of course, the Angelus is simply an echo of the Annunciation, as in St. Luke's gospel, in the first joyful mystery of the rosary, and the beloved Hail Mary.
Fr. Eamon R. Carroll, O. Carm.,S.T.D., is Professor emeritus at Loyola University of Chicago and on the faculty of the International Marian Research Institute, the Marian Library, University of Dayton, Ohio.
This article for the October 2000 AOH Epistle
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