Most Under-Rated Feast Day

So easy to answer! The Annunciation, which is today, as I write, March 25, nine months before Christmas. Yes, Christmas is important; but not as important as Easter; but I always looked to Pentecost as most under-rated and important. Stupid me! Imagine: the entirety of heaven and earth is waiting for her response; the Angel delivers the proposal from heaven; the prophets and patriarchs; the limbo of the just;  and the entirety of human history have all been waiting for precisely this moment. ALL of the future of humanity and the created universe hangs upon her answer. She is free, entirely undetermined, without a trace of coercion or pressure, serene, composed, deliberate, simple. And she says:  " I am the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your will." All, All, All hung upon her singular decision. Hers was THE decisive choice in human history. Nothing even remotely compares in grandeur and gravity. With her Yes, God descended among us; God married humanity in the womb of the virgin and the person of Jesus; and the rest is history. There is a certain inevitability to the rest of Salvation History: Jesus grew, was born, grew up, enacted his mission of healing, teaching, delivering from evil, calling together his apostles; died and was buried and rose; ascended and sent us His Spirit. But He is Jesus and He was going to prevail. Not so definite was the decision of the maiden. Her response was entirely human; everything Jesus does is human and divine. He really is different. She is not. She is absolutely one of us. And her decision was for all of us.
I would compare it to the spousal drama, a romance between a bride and groom: when is the decisive moment: the wedding? the consummation? the first child? No, the decisive moment is when he proposes and she says yes! That moment changes EVERYTHING! From that second, they belong to each other. Clearly, the legal, public, sacramental consent sanctifies and seals this decision. But in their hearts and in their union the promise is already given. Their entire share life and history unfold from there. It is the decisive event of their love. And so it is with the Annunciation. Mary's life; the life of the Trinity; our communal life; and each of our particular lives play out in the light of one quiet, modest, calm decision of a young woman over two thousand years ago.