September 21 - celebration of the Day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For fifty years the righteous saints Joachim and Anna prayed for the child. And they were given a girl - who changed the whole course of life on earth.
Miracle of birth
At the time of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Most Holy Theotokos, childlessness was considered a shame and was a reason for ridicule and humiliation.
Until a ripe old age, Joachim and Anna lived in Nazareth without having children. The holy righteous Joachim was a descendant of King David, to whom God promised that from the seed of his descendants the Savior of the world would be born. Righteous Anna was the daughter of Matthan and was from the tribe of Levin on her father, and from the tribe of Judah on her mother.
The Mother of God was born according to their fervent prayers after the Jerusalem priest Reuben on a great feast rejected the gifts brought to the temple by Joachim. The priest considered that a childless husband could not sacrifice to God.
According to Jewish custom, on the 15th day after birth, the child was given the name indicated by the Angel of God, Mary, which means "lady", "hope." Mary, having become the Mother of the incarnated Creator, was the Mistress and Hope for all creation.
Overcoming division
From the moment the Mother of God was born, the overcoming of the division that existed between God and man from the moment of the Fall began. After all, even before her conception, during the prayer of Joachim in the wilderness and Anna in their house, when an angel appeared to both of them with the good news, he said: “The Lord heeded your prayer, you will conceive and give birth, and they will talk about your offspring throughout the world . This means that the time has come to overcome the painful division, the time has come to be conceived and born by the One through whom the Son of God can be born into the world in order to atone for all the sins of mankind by his death. Therefore, the Nativity of the Virgin is a very human holiday, because she is a man, one of us, who was so pure and bright that through him Christ could be born into the world.
This is what Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh says in one of his sermons on this holiday: “This is joy not only about God's love for us, but also about the fact that the earth - our native, ordinary land - can respond to the love of the Lord in this way.” And in the Christmas troparion it is sung: "Your Christmas, Virgin Mary, the joy of building the whole Universe."
Promotional video:
Change from sadness to joy
Saint Gregory Palamas, reasoning about why Joachim and Anna had no children before the Mother of God, says that the conception of the Virgin Mary replaced two sorrows - small and large - with two joys. It happened, on the one hand, to resolve the sadness and reproach of the parents, and on the other, to prepare the resolution of the sadness and curse that befell the Forefathers of the human race.
“How, then, would nature dare to make common (and for other children) that womb in which she stayed and from which came the One who had the Holy of Holies as her home and the One who became the Abode of the One who created nature?.. But as before Her and after Her no one dwelt in the Holy of Holies, so like this, and in these maternal beds, neither before nor later was another fruit bearing a belly”.
In a conversation on the Nativity of the Mother of God, the saint exclaims: "Oh, these hearts, so pure as to offer such a prayer, which preceded such and reached such!"
Forgiveness
Believers turn to the Mother of God with a variety of prayers, in many of which they ask her to convey their prayer to Her Son. The Mother of God in Christianity is the embodiment of mercy, compassion for people. It is not for nothing that in apocryphal legends She is portrayed as the One who always stands up for sinners who have at least one reason for salvation, at least one manifestation of virtue. The Virgin Mary is perceived primarily as a Mother who does everything to help a person who turns to Her in prayer.
However, much less often we think about the depth of Her forgiveness, Her humility, Her feat. After all, Her love is absolute, boundless self-sacrifice. People put to death her sinless Son - but She did not turn away from them and prays for them even more.
Of the entire human race, the Mother of God was the first to achieve the goal that stands before all people - the complete transformation of the entire human nature.
Ladder
The Mother of God is often called the Ladder. In some icons she holds a symbolic ladder in her hands, in others the stripes on her clothes are arranged so that the attentive viewer (or rather, an accomplice of what is happening on the icon) is shown the ladder. The ladder is one of the symbols of spiritual ascent.
We know that the Old Testament is, as it were, fulfilled, embodied in the New - and this is the case with the prophecies about the Mother of God. So, Jacob's Ladder, which connected the earth and Heaven, is considered its prototype. Indeed, the Mother of God also united Heaven and earth, becoming, as it were, a ladder along which the Son of God descended to people and along which (that is, following the example of whose life) the human soul can ascend to Him.
Modesty of descriptions
The life of the Mother of God is little described in the New Testament; only scant information can be found about Her earthly path. Her wonderful Christmas is hardly described, nor is it detailed about Her parents. The essence of the Mother of God is clear from the events of Her life: the consent to give birth to Christ, knowing that Her Son is to be crucified, and following Him.
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is written in the apocryphal Proto-Gospel of James of the 2nd century. It is in him that the Virgin Mary is glorified as the new Eve. Before the creation of this text, the Mother of God did not occupy such an honorable place among Christians.
This is how the meeting of the spouses after their separate prayers is described in this work:
“And so Joachim came up with his flocks, and Anna, standing at the gate, saw Joachim walking, and, running up, embraced him, and said: I know now that the Lord has blessed me: being a widow, I am no longer a widow, being barren, I now I will conceive! And Joachim found peace in his house that day."
Place of Christmas
In the Holy Land, not far from each other, there are two churches, Catholic and Orthodox, dedicated to St. Anna, the mother of the Virgin. Both denominations agree that the Virgin Mary was born in the house of Joachim and Anna in the northeastern part of Jerusalem. The exact location of this house is unknown, and the temples stand at a distance of about 70 meters from each other. In these churches (the monastery of St. Anne and the Basilica of St. Anne) there are ancient underground rooms, caves, which, according to legend, were part of the house of Joachim and Anna.
This place is located in the Muslim quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Lion Gate.