IV. The Programme "Starting afresh from Christ with Mary" in the light of the Christological and Marian contents in the narrative of the Annunciation according to Luke, 1, 26 -38.

1. The Protagonists of the Narrative

        Mary is the one destined to receive the mission entrusted to an angel of God (Lk 1: 26). The structure of the account gives evidence of the great respect with which God treats Mary. God recognizes her feminine dignity. God does not act in the womb of Mary without previous warning or without her previous consent. God treats her as a true protagonist in the great work of the conception of Jesus. The dignity of the human person, and more concretely the dignity of the woman, attains its greatest recognition in Mary. In Mary the vocation of the human person in dialogue with God reaches its highest fulfillment. In her also is found the highest expression of the capacity and the will of the human person to collaborate with God.

        According to the other points of the brief introduction (Lk 1: 26-27), Mary is a Jewish woman who lives in a city of Galilee, called Nazareth (Lk 1: 26). She is a "virgin" (Lk 1: 27). Such a characteristic certainly affects the past and the present of Mary: Mary has never known man. The epithet, by itself alone, is not sufficient to attribute to Mary a plan of virginity for the future. Only the later context can enrich the qualification given to Mary with this aspect. She is also characterized as the "emnêsteuménê" (Lk 1: 27) of Joseph, a man of the house of David (Lk 1: 27). Without stopping for the moment to examine the meaning attributed by Luke to this Greek word, we can say that it does not simply mean what the word" fiancée" means in present-day culture. Mary was bound to Joseph by a stronger bond than that.