The Venerable Sister Mary of Jesus of Ágreda describes how the Archangel Gabriel announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. Why shepherds? The Blessed Virgin Mary tells us that many more could have been notified, if only they had lived different lives. She said, "...take notice of and ponder over the burning love of my most holy Son in communicating Himself to men as soon as He was born, in order to make them immediate partakers of the joyful fruit of his coming. Men do not know of this obligation, because few of them penetrate to the significance of this great blessing, just as there were few who saw the Word at his Birth and thanked Him for his arrival. They are not aware of the cause of their evil state and of their blindness, which neither was nor is to be ascribed to the Lord nor to any fault in his love, but to the sins and the bad dispositions of men. If their own bad dispositions would not impede or make them unworthy of this favor, the same light, which was given to the just, to the shepherds, and to the kings [Magi], would have been granted to all or to many. That there should be so few, will make you understand in what an unhappy condition the world was at the time of the coming of the incarnate Word; and also the unhappiness of the present times, when these mysteries have become so evident and when grateful memory of them has become so scarce."