The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary (Ghvtismshobloba)

The Nativity of our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God Mary. In Christian literature there is an apocryphal work of James, “The Nativity of Mary”, which tells in detail how Joachim and Anna were given the future Mother of the incarnate Lord.

The rich but childless Joachim every year offered a double sacrifice to the Lord. On one feast, when the Jews were preparing to offer sacrifice in the temple in Jerusalem, they refused to let Joachim offer his sacrifice first, giving as their reason the childlessness of Joachim and Anna (among the Hebrew people childlessness was considered a punishment from God).

The grieving Joachim’s sorrow was multiplied, and he went off into the desert without even going home to see his wife. There, in a hastily built tent, he spent forty days and nights without food or drink in fervent prayer.

To Saint Anna’s sorrow was added grief over her husband, and she hardly showed herself to anyone. Even her maidservant reproached Anna with her childlessness: “The Lord God has shut up thy womb and has not granted thee fruit in Israel.”

Then Anna took off her mourning clothes, dressed herself festively, went down into the garden, sat down under a laurel tree and fervently besought the Lord: “O God of my fathers, bless me and hear my prayer, as Thou didst bless our mother Sarah and didst give her Isaac.”

An angel appeared to Anna and told her that God had heard her prayer and she would become a mother, and her child would be glorified throughout the world. Rejoicing, the woman vowed in gratitude to dedicate the child to the Lord, to be His servant all its life.

The angel also told Joachim, who had withdrawn into the desert, that God had heard his prayer and they would soon have a child.

Joachim called the shepherds and ordered them to prepare a sacrifice to be offered. Anna was waiting for him at home. As soon as she saw her husband coming with the shepherds, she went out to meet him and told him the joyful news.

A daughter was born to them, whom they named Mary. When Mary was six months old her mother set her on the ground. The child took seven steps and reached her mother’s lap. The joyful mother caught up her child in her arms and vowed that she would not let her set foot on the ground again until she brought her into the temple of the Lord.

When Mary was a year old, Joachim held a great feast and invited to his house the high priests, priests, scribes and venerable elders. “Hear, hear, ye twelve tribes of Israel: Anna gives suck,” sang Saint Anna with joy.

When Mary was three years old, her parents, according to the vow they had made, brought her to the temple. Pure maidens with lighted candles accompanied the child to the temple; the high priest brought Mary into the sanctuary and blessed her thus: “The Lord has magnified thy name among all generations. In thee in the last times shall the Lord redeem the children of Israel.”

The Virgin lived in the temple and received her food from the hands of angels until she was twelve years old and, by the Lord’s command, was entrusted to the care of Joseph, an old widower.

The Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin Mary is one of the greatest feasts. This is the day on which the Lord looked with the eye of mercy on mankind fallen through sin and sent into the world the womb of God’s incarnation, the throne of the King, the ladder of heaven, the redeemer of Eve’s transgression: the Most Holy Mother of God Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.