QUOTE : When she hears the news that God has chosen her to play a physically and emotionally dangerous role in history, Mary reacts not with confusion or reluctance, but with swift acceptance. To any of her contemporaries who heard about this for the first time, the young woman's acceptance would have seemed surprising, almost shocking. For an unmarried woman in first-century Galilee, a pregnancy of any kind would be frightening news, even if the child were wished-for and the identity of the child's father was not in doubt.