NATIVITY OF THE THEOTOKOS

The Nativity of the Virgin Mary is celebrated in September, as it is the first month of the liturgical year, specifically September 8th, or the 21st according to our calendar, since eight is the biblical number for the eighth day, that is, eternity. The Virgin Mary is the Ladder to Heaven, seen by the Patriarch James, written about by John of Sinai in his ascetic book, “The Ladder,” and sung about, unknowingly, by Led Zeppelin. She gave birth to the Messiah, Christ, and we run, we leap, we rush, we escape from time to eternity. This, in brief, is the essence of the celebration of Her Nativity.

1 Of all the Gospel passages that could be read at the service of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, the most theologically appropriate would be the account of the Nativity of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew. This short text begins immediately after the genealogy of Jesus Christ in the first chapter and consists of only eight verses, verses 18 through 25, once again, spontaneously and involuntarily, in the image of eternity. “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about,” the narrative begins. “She gave birth to her firstborn son, and Joseph gave him the name Jesus,” the narrative ends. The Mother of God had nothing of her own. The birth of her Son was simultaneously the beginning and end of the entire biography of the Blessed Virgin, culminating on the Cross of Christ.

2 Analogous to the Nativity season in the liturgical year, when the doxology “Christ is born” is proclaimed, the liturgical texts repeat the greeting to Mary, who brought joy to the world with her birth. “Your Nativity, O Virgin, has proclaimed joy to the whole universe. The Sunf of Righteousness, Christ our God, has shone from you, O Theotokos! By annulling the curse, He bestowed a blessing; by destroying death, He has granted us eternal Life,” the troparion of the feast sings. At the same time, the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of the Apostle Paul, declares that “we no longer know Christ according to the flesh” (2 Corinthians 5:16). This means that we lack direct, historical, linear, and biographical access to the events that took place in the home of Mary’s parents and surrounding the circumstances of her birth.

3 There are so-called apocryphal texts. They are divided into two groups: orthodox and heretical. The former are recognized by the Church, but, unlike Holy Scripture, they are not inspired by God; they sorely lack the direct influence of the Holy Spirit and genuine historicity. These ancient documents bore the names of apostles and other contemporaries of Jesus Christ’s earthly life but lacked sufficient authority to be accepted into the canon of sacred books of the New Testament. Apocryphal texts help us better understand and comprehend, in a sense “symbolically” experience, what took place then.

4 Thanks to these texts, among which the Protoevangelium of James stands out, we can, if not literally know, then at least inwardly understand certain details of this or that event in Mary’s life. However, these texts could not serve as bearers for Christians of what took place in that distant era in a strictly historical sense. Because of this imperfect knowledge of the specific details of the celebrated event, the service of the Nativity of Mary takes on poetic qualities. The liturgy of the feast is a sequential doxology. The Nativity of Mary is the fulfillment of biblical promises. The Nativity of the Theotokos is a pledge of the Nativity of Christ, which draws near with her birth. After all, the Nativity of Christ itself, according to the words of Paul just quoted, is also inaccessible to our understanding and appears to us as a deeply theological narrative.

5 “Christ Jesus died; “And He is risen, He is at the right hand of God,” proclaims the Apostle Paul in the prologue to his greatest hymn about God’s love in the hearts of believers, Romans (8:34). Christ is risen, He sits at the right hand of the Father. And He is returning. He is about to return in His glorious Second Coming. The celebration of the Nativity of the Theotokos is undoubtedly one of the echoes of this soon-to-come event. In the Eucharistic prayer of the Orthodox liturgy, the Second Coming of Christ is remembered as an accomplished fact.

6 Here are the words of the priest before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ: “Remembering, therefore, this saving commandment and all that has been done for our sake: the tomb, the Resurection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand, and the second and glorious coming again.” Where are the words about the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost? Did John Chrysostom, whom the Orthodox tradition considers the author of the liturgy, miss them or forget them? No, absolutely not. In the Orthodox understanding, the descent of the Holy Spirit is recreated through His invocation upon the Holy Gifts, called the Epiclesis. “Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon the gifts here presented,” the priest prays. In response to this prayer, the Holy Spirit always descends not only upon the Bread and Wine, but also “upon us.” This Epiclesis is twofold. After all, together with the Bread and Wine, we also become the Body and Blood of Christ. And, as the greatest Orthodox mystical Father of the Church, Simeon the New Theologian (949–1022), wrote, we become the Theotokos. That is why the Nativity of Mary is the birthday of each of us.