Everyone of us believes in him who is the Son of God and son of Mary, ever-virgin and mother of God. And as believers we faithfully welcome his gospel into our hearts, confessing in words our belief, and repenting with all our soul of our past sins. Then immediately, just as God the Word of the Father entered the Virgin’s womb, so also in ourselves the word which we receive in learning right belief appears like a seed.
You should be amazed when you hear of such an awe-inspiring mystery, and because the word is reliable you should receive it with full conviction and faith. In fact we receive him not bodily, as the Virgin and Mother of God received him, but both spiritually and substantially. And the very one whom the chaste Virgin also received, we hold in our own hearts, as Saint Paul says: It is God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to reveal the knowledge of his Son. In other words: he has become wholly substantial in us. And that he actually meant this, he made clear in the next verse: But we contain this treasure in earthenware pots, calling the Holy Spirit a treasure.
But elsewhere he also calls the Lord Spirit: The Lord is the Spirit, he says. And he tells us this so that if you hear the words the Son of God, you should think of and hear the words the Spirit at the same time. Again, if you hear the Spirit mentioned you should join the Father to the Spirit in thought, because concerning the Father too it is said: God is Spirit.
You are constantly taught that the Holy Trinity is inseparable and of the same substance, and that where the Son is the Father is also, and where the Father is the Spirit is also, and where the Holy Spirit is the whole of the deity in three persons is, the one God and Father with Son and Spirit of the same substance, “who is praised for ever. Amen.”
So if we wholeheartedly believe and ardently repent, we receive the Word of God in our hearts, as has been said, like the Virgin, if of course we bring with us our own souls chaste and pure. And just as the fire of the deity did not consume the Virgin since she was supremely pure, so neither does it consume us if we bring with us chaste and pure hearts; on the contrary it becomes in us the dew from heaven, a spring of water, and a stream of immortal life.
Musical Selection (Archangel Voices)
Awed by the beauty of thy virginity, and the exceeding of thy purity, Gabriel stood amazed and cried to thee, O Mother of God: “What praise may I offer thee that is worthy of thy beauty? By what name shall I call thee? I am lost and bewildered. But I shall greet thee as I was commanded: ‘Hail, thou that art full of grace.’”