Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you. You have found favor with God. The passage which constitutes today’s Gospel reading recounts the visitation of the Virgin Mary by the angel Gabriel. Six months after a similar mission that had taken him to the household of Zechariah, the angel Gabriel finds himself in Mary’s house. And just as was the case six months earlier, the angel Gabriel was paying Mary a visit as a bearer of some good news. It was good news that startled even the intended recipient herself. No one could blame Mary for her initial reaction to the angel’s message. As if being visited by an angel of the Lord was not shocking enough, here was the angel telling her that she had been found to be worthy of God’s favor. How could she have possibly found favor in the eyes of God? What had she done? What had she accomplished in life? She was a mere teenager who was yet to accrue any status. She was as ordinary as any girl of her age and background could be. She hadn’t pulled any great feat that could be referenced. And how in God’s holy name could the news of her conceiving and bearing a child outside wedlock be considered good news? Had she been the age of her kinswoman Elizabeth who was of age, news of her conceiving and bearing a son would be good news indeed. But for a teenager who was yet to know a man, this was quite confusing (and embarrassing as well). It was not until angel Gabriel’s ‘clarification’ that Mary was able to understand the meaning of the angel’s greeting: Elizabeth, Mary’s relative who was called barren, had also conceived a son in her old age. In other words, Mary had been found favored by the Lord despite her low status. It was the Lord’s doing. 
After learning of the favor which had smiled upon her kinswoman, Mary came to understand that the angel’s greeting was not hers alone. She came to understand that the Lord’s favor that had rested upon her was not hers to keep under lock and key, so to speak. She was receiving the angel’s greeting on behalf of her kinsfolk. The good news of her conceiving and bearing the son of God was actually not exclusively hers but rather the good news for the entire human race. It was the fallen world that had been groaning in pain (cf. Romans 8:22ff) as it awaited the salvation that would be ushered by God assuming a creaturely nature. Despite her being led into rebellion by the human race, the universe was still a graced creation of God, and God was not going to abandon her. This was the meaning behind the name (Jesus) that the child to be born was to be given. God was still with creation and had come to save it from perishing into oblivion. Such was the good news that the archangel Gabriel came bearing and which Mary received on behalf of the created universe.