Annunciation

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."

"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.

-From Luke

Archangel Gabriel

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

-from Luke

Montesegur Day

On March 16th 1244 a fire burned at the base of a mountain known as "The Pog"* in the heart of the Languadoc region in Southern France. Around 220 souls were marched into that fire. The fortress here at the top of the mountain was where the Cathars put up their last temporal resistance for their life and their faith - for the right to live and practice a spirituality that for them connected them to their destiny in light, truth, love and gnosis.

For them, to deny this connection was to deny their own souls. For them, it made more sense to face the fires at the feet of unknowing faces and empty eyes then to turn away from the light of the Good God.

I can't imagine what it must have been like. What kind of doubts if any were had by these people of the Languadoc. If the soldiers who carried this out felt anything when they saw the eyes of children as they looked to their mother's and fathers in bewilderment.

What I do know is that they are not forgotten.

* It's interesting to note that the mountain's name "The Pog" and it's similarity to the word "pogrom" which means an organized massacre of an ethnic group. I don't know if this is a coincidence or if the terms are somehow historically connected.