The feast today is the story of our salvation through the temple of God.
The first temple was the temple in Jerusalem. It was a foreshadowing of the temple to come. It was localized in one place – the city of Jerusalem. In it were no images of God, for “No one has ever seen God. (1 John 4:12)” The Liturgy tells us that he is “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing, yet ever the same.” The temple was his footstool on earth. Here animal sacrifice was offered to God, which was only a foreshadowing of the perfect sacrifice to be offered by our Lord, “when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11-12)”
The second temple is Mary, the birth-giver of God.” In today’s feast, she enters the temple of Jerusalem in order to replace it, for she shall bear God within her womb. As the new and living temple of God, she is our temple, for like Mary, who carried God in her womb, we receive God into our bodies in Holy Communion. As Mary was fed in the temple by angelic bread, so we receive the bread of life, the Body of Jesus, and his holy blood of the perfect sacrifice, which becomes our sacrifice of praise. St. Paul teaches us, “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1),” in Sunday’s Epistle, he wrote, “you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)” This is the temple of God for us today.
On this Sunday, we celebrate the feast of the Protection of the Theotokos. This commemorates the vision of St. Andrew, the Fool for Christ, who, during an attack, as the people kept an All-night Vigil of Prayer, saw the Mother of God holding a protecting veil over her city. We can say, then, that this feast celebrates the power of Mary, who fights on behalf of Christians, and is a mighty protector of the people. On this day we read the common Gospel from St. Luke on feasts of Mary, the story of Mary and Martha. Maybe a better gospel would be the story of the wedding at Cana in Galilee. There, at Cana, it was Jesus’ mother, a woman, who by her plea, guided God to make wine out of water, telling the stewards, and through them, saying to all of us, “Do whatever he tells you.” As his mother, she began the story of Jesus’ mission, even though he had said, “My hour has not yet come.” This truly is power given to her by God. This is still Mary’s relationship with us. She is our protector and motherly intercessor. She is the mother of all believers, for our Lord, on the cross, gave her to his beloved disciple and through him to all of us. Her message to us always, every time she appears, is “Do what my Son tells you.”
Christians of East and West can express their gratitude for today’s feast to brought to our awareness by Eastern monks. It was in the seventh century, this feast of Our Lady was celebrated by Greek Christians. The narrative of Mary’s Nativity is not testified to in sacred Scripture but known only from apocryphal sources. By the end of the seventh century this feast gained acceptance in the Diocese of Rome.
Tonight at the Divine Liturgy, Father Iura blessed herbs and flowers.
“Come, all you ends of the earth, let us praise the blessed passing of the Mother of God. She delivers her sinless soul into the hands of her Son; through her holy Dormition, the world is given new life.” (Stichera at the Litija)
Neither the tomb, nor death, could hold the Theotokos, who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions. For being the Mother of Life, she was translated to life, by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb (Kontakion for the Dormition).
In addition to the myriad of feast days honoring Our Lady in her many titles and virtues, the entire month of May is especially given to her praise. In the words of Pope Paul VI: May is “a month which the piety of the faithful has long dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God . . . For this is the month during which Christians, in their churches and their homes, offer the Virgin Mother more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration; and it is the month in which a greater abundance of God’s merciful gifts comes down to us from our Mother’s throne.”
This weekend we are celebrating the mystery of our Lord’s accepting human nature for our salvation. The Archangel Gabriel asks Mary to receive God’s plan and become the mother of the Son and Word of God, to be named “Jesus,” “Savior.” Mary replies, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)” Mary’s response to God was perfect and reversed the sin of Eve. In our Lenten journey, we
Annunciation of Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos), March 25th
The following meditation opens an interesting question about Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos means the bearer of God). A daughter of an Orthodox priest, Sister Vassa, a native of Nyack, NY, earned a doctorate in liturgical theology from the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, now is a researcher and teacher in Vienna. She produces a the popular program, “Coffee with Sister Vassa.”