The Annunciation of Mary: From the 1662 Book of Common Prayer

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Festival (fixed in date by Christmas) is of early origin, being apparently an old established Festival in the 7th century. Like the Purification, it is properly a Festival of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and this idea is preserved in the Collect. But as it dwells on the Blessed Virgin, as highly favoured of the Lord, it naturally passed into a commemoration of her; and (as is shown by its popular name "Lady Day"), became the chief of the various Festivals, which in later times marked the ever-increasing reverence directed towards the mother of the Lord -- prolific of a mass of extraordinary legend, and of a veneration, which has become actual worship. It is beyond all dispute that Holy Scripture and primitive antiquity, while they bring out her blessedness and dignity, give no vestige of authority for all that has gone beyond this, both in the Eastern and in the Western Church. -- March 25th.