{"id":33952,"date":"2016-09-08T07:56:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T11:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/?p=33952"},"modified":"2016-09-08T08:31:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T12:31:25","slug":"nativity-of-mary-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2016\/09\/nativity-of-mary-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Nativity of Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nativity-of-mary\"<\/a>\u201cBy Your Nativity, O Most Pure Virgin, \/ Joachim and Anna are freed from the reproach\/disgrace of barrenness; \/ Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death. \/ And we, your people, freed from subjection to sin, celebrate and sing to you: \/ The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos, the nourisher of our life!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Byzantine Kontakion-hymn of the Nativity of the Theotokos)<\/p>\n

\n

The Liturgy\u00a0for\u00a0the great feast of the Nativity of Mary\u00a0is full of theology that we can not walk away from, even if they are difficult theological concepts, like \u201ccorruption of death\u201d and \u201csubjection to (liabilty for) sin,\u201d referring to our human state before Christ. The beauty of the poetry here to convey what we believe is stunning: the mention of Jesus Christ annulling our \u201ccurse\u201d in another well-known hymn, the Troparion\u00a0of the feast: \u201cBy annulling the curse He bestowed a blessing, by destroying death, He gave us eternal life.\u201d What does it mean for us today?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A\u00a0key to unlock the importance of this feast is understanding the generation before Mary:\u00a0Saints Joachim and Anna. These two experienced in their life, in their experience, what the Kontakion\u00a0above speaks of\u00a0\u201cdisgrace of barrenness\u201d or \u201cchidlessness.\u201d Consider what it means for a woman to experience the inability to conceive, or to experience the death of her infant child. What God did was\u00a0to free\u00a0Anna from the paralyzing \u201cbarrenness\u201d of her body and give her an incomparable blessing –the gift of Life. With Joachim and Anna, God intervened in human history making it possible for them to \u201clive\u201d to their full potential by giving birth to Mary. Life makes all the difference.<\/p>\n

The feast is, as St. Andrew of Crete describes it, \u201cthe beginning of feasts. It represents the first of the feasts against the Law and the shadows, yet also the entrance of those that lead to grace and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Source of Life in His creative energies allows humans to be truly productive and truly human when it was impossible. So today we honor Mary, but we also honor her parents, Joachim and Anna, \u201cthe barren woman gives birth.\u201d THE Good News here is that God the Father bestows the\u00a0same blessing on the Church. As one theologian said, He continues to bless \u201can ever God-Bearing Church.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBy Your Nativity, O Most Pure Virgin, \/ Joachim and Anna are freed from the reproach\/disgrace of barrenness; \/ Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death. \/ And we, your people, freed from subjection to sin, celebrate and sing to you: \/ The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos, the nourisher of our … Continue reading Nativity of Mary<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[3002],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33956,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33952\/revisions\/33956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}