Using our liturgical calendar, let’s put ourselves at the end of March in northern Israel more than 2,000 years ago. Living in Nazareth is a young man named Mary. She was an observant Jewish girl raised by her parents, Joachim and Anne. She was perhaps in her teens (remember the lifespan of the times) and probably very poor. As regards the latter, so was Joseph, the man to whom she was engaged, even though — somewhere long ago — his family was part of the line of the great King David.