Nativity of the Mother of God

I greet you all on this blessed feast day – the first major feast day of the new Church Year – the glorious celebration of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary!

As we read from the Prologue of Ochrid by St Nikolai Velimirovich: ‘The Holy Virgin Mary was born of aged parents, Joachim and Anna.  Her father was of the lineage of David, and her mother of the lineage of Aaron.  Thus, she was of royal birth by her father, and of priestly birth by her mother.  In this, she foreshadowed Him Who would be born of her as King and High Priest.  Her parents were quite old and had no children - because of this they were ashamed before men and humble before God.  In their humility they prayed to God with tears, to bring them joy in their old age by giving them a child, as He had once given joy to the aged Abraham and his wife Sarah by giving them Isaac.’

And the Lord heard their prayers and blessed them with this child in their old age… and what a child it was! A beautiful daughter who would be chosen by God to bring forth His Son into this world.

While the birth of the Holy Virgin Mary is duly honored and celebrated by the Orthodox Church, it may be useful to clarify that we do not share nor approve of the 19th century innovation introduced by the Roman Catholic Church known as ‘the immaculate conception’. This strange teaching would have it that the Virgin Mary was born without sin, without sharing in the fallen nature of mankind. This teaching is condemned by the Orthodox Church as a heresy and for good reason… To say that the Virgin Mary was somehow unaffected and an exception from the inherited sin and fallen nature of all of mankind, this robs her of her great virtue of having resisted sin throughout her life and it separates her from the rest of us. Such a teaching does great harm to her heroic purity and to the great closeness that we feel for her as a fully human being whom we exalt as more honorable than the Cherubim and beyond compare, more glorious than the Seraphim.

The birth of the Virgin Mary is often referred to as the beginning of our salvation. As I mentioned, it is the first of the great feasts of the Church Year. And all of this is so appropriate… for indeed, with the birth of the Virgin Mary, all the prophecies of the Old Testament are now set in motion for the coming incarnation of God.

When she was just three years old, the parents Joachim and Anna brought her to the temple to dedicate her to God. As all stood in wonder, the young girl bounded up the steps of the temple where she was received by the High Priest Zacharias, who then proceeded with her straight into the Holy of Holies – a place forbidden to women and to men, and only entered by the High Priest on specific festal occasions.

What a great mystery we see in beholding the Virgin Mary… a young and humble virgin who becomes the temple of the God of Creation! 

The ever-memorable Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh offers us the following reflection: ‘When a man surveys this world in which we live, which is so vast, seemingly boundless, and looks at himself in it, he feels very small and insignificant. And if he adds to this the hardness and coldness of men, he may sometimes feel extremely vulnerable, helpless and unprotected both before people and before the terrifying vastness of the world.

Yet at the same time if a man looks at himself not in relation to his surroundings, but goes deep into himself, he will there discover such an expanse, such depths, that the whole created world is too small to fill it. Man sees the beauty of the world — and the vision does not completely satisfy him; he learns an enormous amount about God's creation — and the knowledge does not fill him to the brim. Neither human joy nor even human sorrow can completely fill a man, because in him is a depth that exceeds everything created; because God made man so vast, so deep, so limitless in his spiritual being, that nothing in the world can finally satisfy him except God Himself.’

Our Orthodox hymnography speaks about how God, Who holds the whole universe in His arms, submits Himself to be held in the arms of a young Virgin! Indeed, how is it that God, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, the Maker of the vastness of all of creation… how can His limitlessness be contained within a human being?

St Macarius the Great, in reflecting upon the human heart, writes the following: ‘The heart is but a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there likewise are poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough, uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms. There also is God, there are the angels, there life and the Kingdom, there light and the apostles, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace: all things are there.’

What a great mystery is this capacity within a human being to encompass heaven or hell.

Today we celebrate the birth of the one who retained such purity of soul that God deigned to physically become incarnate within her.  

Let us stand in awe and in gratitude before this great mystery. Let us stand in awe and gratitude for the courage and trust of the Virgin Mary, who, when confronted with the announcement that she had been chosen by God to give birth to His Son, responded with those beautiful words: ‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, let it be unto me according to His will.’

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ… pray to her that we might have even some small measure of her courage and her faith… that we also might respond to God in whatever way He calls us: ‘Behold, the servant of the Lord, let it be unto me according to Thy will.’

As an Orthodox Christian you also are invited to be a God-bearer… every time you partake of Communion, you take within yourself the uncontainable God. What a great mystery indeed! Let us be conscious of it and let us strive to live our lives so as to be worthy vessels of such amazing grace!