Today’s icon for Holy Week is called “The Bridegroom” and is a central image for this week.
The image represents the watchfulness of Christ, His presence and His coming, as well as our own responsibility in keeping awake for His coming. The parable of the ten virgins will be our icon for tomorrow, but today, we gaze on Christ.
Interestingly enough, March 25 is also the Feast of the Annunciation—the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary. The Church celebrates this feast exactly nine months before Christmas, which finds us on the first Monday of Holy Week this year (a relatively rare occurrence.)
I’ve been reading Luke 1:26-28 in light of this concurrence of events, and as I stay with this image of Christ, I’ve begun to wonder how Jesus would have seemed to Mary this week. Would she have known, deep in her somewhere, that just as the angel came to tell her of His birth, that this week’s events were foretelling His death? What would a mother’s love have seen in this icon? What does that invite us to see in Him today?