The Angelus still has appeal.

Many of our readers, perhaps, most are unfamiliar with the Catholic tradition of the Angelus--a devotion that honors the Annunciation three times daily at the tolling of church bells. A recent trip to Ireland reminded me of the custom, because Radio Telifis Eireann, the state television station, displays an image of Mary and her child, and rings the Angelus bell each day at 6 p m.

This TV image brought back to me a childhood memory of bells: three sets of three peals for each of the petitions and nine straight peals for good measure. I remembered that as a teenager, I had a summer job at our parish church in San Francisco; one of my tasks--a joyful one--was ringing the Angelus by pulling in steady rhythms the long rope that led to the great bell above. But now I am a child again, standing in the kitchen with my mother reciting the prayers of the Angelus. And I recall Sir John Everett Millais' famous painting of the peasants pausing from their labors in the field with bowed heads to take part in this ritual. And I am grateful again for a practice that has joined Catholics throughout the world three times a day to reflect on God's enfleshment in our brother Jesus and on the role of the Jewish servant girl, Mary of Nazareth, who is the model of biblical faith.

"The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary," said my mother. I answered, "And she conceived of the Holy Spirit." Then we said a Hail Mary. I don't know whether I thought much about the Annunciation as a child. But when I say these prayers today, the power of God's word has a totally different resonance for me. The great theologian Karl Barth noted that the German verb empfangen means both "to receive a gift" and "to conceive a child." In the Annunciation Mary does both. She receives the Lord from the angelic messenger, and she conceives of the Holy Spirit.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord," my mother intoned. "Be it done to me according to thy word," I said. Then another Hail Mary. Like the angel, we greet Mary because she did not resist God's word, but accepted the word with the humility of a servant girl. She believes, she trusts, she lets God's word enter fully into her life. This is the word powerful enough to bring light out of darkness and order out of chaos (Gen. 1:15). This is the word that challenged and consoled the People of God when, as we say in the Nicene Creed, God "spoke through the prophets." This is the word that went forth from God's mouth and did not return empty or void, but accomplished its mission of renewal and conversion (Isa. 55:11). This is the word that sheds light on our darkness and cannot be smothered by the darkness (John 1:5); this is the word rejected by those who should receive it John 1:11) and the source of salvation and rebirth as God's children for all who accept it John 1:12-13). This is the word that God uttered with complete self-disclosure when he spoke "in these final days" through the mouth of his son (Heb. 1:2). And a Jewish teenager gives all of us a model of docility in the face of this word: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word."

Again my mother's voice rings clearly in my mind: "The Word was made flesh." And the soft voice of a child uttering things beyond my ken: "And dwelled among us." And then a third Ave Maria. Not verbose discourse, but intimate, vulnerable, fleshy communication. What a marvel! No abstract proposition or remote Prime Mover in the sky, but God himself pitching his tent and dwelling with and in his people Israel. What an Emmanuel!

My mother's name is Mary, too. When she died last February at the age of 91, I grieved her loss doubly because my father had died in 1975, and I was now an orphan. What made me realize this with stark simplicity was that I could no longer call home and chat with her. Truth to tell, I had not said the Angelus in decades. Wasn't it better to ring up my mother and talk with her? Such was the rationalization I offered myself for abandoning the piety of my youth. But now that I can no longer rely on the marvel of the telephone to connect me with my mother, I realize that I can still be close to her and to Mary of Nazareth, whose faith makes her mother of us all, as I pray: "Holy Mary, . . . pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen."