Common · History

Lady Day

Feast of the Annunciation, usually 25 March in the Western liturgical calendar

In the Western liturgical year, Lady Day is the common name in some English-speaking countries of the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated on 25 March to commemorate the annunciation of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would bear Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The commemorated event is known in the 1549 prayer book of Edward VI and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as "The Annunciation of the (Blessed) Virgin Mary" but more accurately (as in the modern Calendar of the Church of England) termed "The Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary". It is the first of the four traditional English quarter days. The "(Our) Lady" is the Virgin Mary. The term derives from Middle English, when some nouns lost their genitive inflections. "Lady" would later gain an -s genitive ending, and therefore the name means "(Our) Lady's day". The day commemorates the tradition of archangel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would give birth to the Christ. It is celebrated on 25 March each year. In the Catholic Church's Latin liturgical rites, when 25 March falls during Holy Week or Easter week, it is transferred forward to the first suitable day during Eastertide. In Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, it is never transferred, even if it falls on Pascha (Easter).

Text: Wikipédia, CC BY-SA 4.0. · Image: Livioandronico2013 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ·