Today's feast of the Annunciation is one of the more outrageous commemorations on the church calendar, outrageous at least by the standards of 21st-century secularism, which impacts us all to some extent.  God communicates--via an angel--with  an illiterate Jewish peasant girl and asks her to get pregnant out of wedlock.  I was struck by  the following observation on this event posted on the site of St Paul's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Brisbane, Australia.  Hat tip to The Society of Catholic Priests.

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When Mary the Virgin was about fourteen years old, the Archangel Gabriel came to Joseph's dwelling, where she was living, and said to her, "Rejoice, Thou Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee:  blessed art Thou among women."  Receiving assurance that she had been chosen to be the Mother of God Himself, she answered in humility, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to Thy word."  Immediately, the Holy Spirit came upon her, the power of the Most High overshadowed her, and the Incarnation, long awaited by the whole creation, took place:  He who contains the whole universe consented to be contained in the womb of one woman, the most holy Theotokos.

The Church teaches us that it was within the Holy Virgin's power to refuse the divine conception:  her knowing and willing acceptance, the consummation of the faith of the whole righteous remnant of Israel, shows us that our very salvation is the fruit of the cooperation (synergia) of human faithfulness with God's saving grace.