Homily for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Allison Graham, King’ College Don
September 8, 2020

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. +

Of all the major Marian feasts, the Nativity of the Theotokos is the one that I pay the least attention to. It is not preceded by a period of fasting, as the Dormition is, nor is it a celebration in the midst of Lent or Advent like the Annunciation and Entrance into the Temple. Instead, it is a quiet feast that, for me at least, easily gets lost in the busyness of a new semester.

The Nativity of the Mother of God also does not hold a prominent place in scripture. In fact, it is not recorded in the New Testament at all, though the events are found in the Protoevangelium of James, a non-canonical text from the second century. Thus, the Gospel readings for today are not a narration of Mary’s birth to the elderly Joachim and Anna, but rather two short accounts in praise of faithfulness, taken from the Gospel of Luke. (I should note here that these readings are found in the Orthodox calendar, not the Anglican lectionary, so I apologize for the discrepancy.)

“Now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me.’

“And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.’ ”

And our second reading:

“And it happened as he spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which nursed you!’

“But he said, ‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’ ” (Luke 10.38-42, 11.27-28).

Like Mary the sister of Lazarus, Mary the Mother of God is attentive to “the one thing needful” and Christ affirms her blessedness not only because of her physical closeness with him, but also because of her faithfulness. At the Annunciation, this faithfulness is found in Mary’s assent to bear and give birth to Christ, to become the Theotokos, the Greek word for ‘God-bearer.’ She is human, so her role as the Mother of God is a human one. Nonetheless the titles Theotokos and Mother of God can make her humanity seem different, and far greater, than mine. At her Nativity, though, the case is different. Here Mary, the woman “more spacious than the heavens,” is but a small human baby. If I cannot yet imitate her faithfulness at the Annunciation, I can try to follow her example, and that of her parents, earlier in life. In the story of Mary’s Nativity and in today’s Gospel readings, we see that faithfulness and attentiveness are lengthy practices. Joachim and Anna prayed for years for a child before they conceived. Mary entered the temple as a young girl and was growing in faithfulness long before she was visited by the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. We must prepare for the momentous occasions in our lives.

The 14th-century theologian St. Gregory Palamas begins his sermon on the Nativity of the Theotokos by saying that it is always the right time to start living in a manner “that will lead to salvation,” but if we are looking for a particular time to start over and commit ourselves to faithfulness afresh, then there is no better month than September, which includes the harvest season, the beginning of the Byzantine ecclesiastical year, and the feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos.[1] In our college setting, we can add the start of a new academic year to this list. Students got out of self-isolation and moved into residence this weekend, many classes started today, and FYP begins tomorrow. While the flurry of start-of-the-semester activity is the reason that I have overlooked this feast before, the coinciding [factors] can be fruitful if we begin this semester reflecting on the themes of newness and attentiveness found in todays feast. Another name for Mary is the “New Eve,” and the connection between Eve and Mary is prominent in many of the verses chanted at Eastern-rite vespers today.

“What is this sound of feasting we hear? Joachim and Anna mystically celebrate, saying: ‘Rejoice with us today, O Adam and Eve, for if by your transgression you closed the gate of Paradise to those of old, we have now been given a glorious fruit, Mary, the child of God, who opens its entrance to all!”[2]

With the Theotokos’ birth, a new stage in salvation history begins, for without her the Nativity of Christ and his subsequent crucifixion and resurrection could not occur.

We too can choose newness now: to meet new people, try new things, form new habits. But we are unlikely to succeed in our attempts at newness unless we also follow Mary’s example of attentiveness and faithfulness. “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it,” Christ says in today’s reading. The Theotokos is blessed not because of a single moment of accepting God’s will or even for the nine months she bore God in her womb, but for her constant faithfulness to God, her unending attention to him which we can see in the icon at the back of the chapel. She holds Christ in her left arm while her right hand points toward him, eyes and head gently inclined to direct our gaze toward him.

The university setting provides us with many opportunities to practice attentiveness: in classes and while studying, in our relationships with fellow students, faculty, and staff, in our physical nourishment in Prince Hall and at the gym, in the services and silence of the chapel. These varied opportunities for attentiveness also mean that our focus of attention will often not be the same as Mary’s, but her devotion can still be a model for us. Whatever we decide to be attentive to will shape us. On this day when Adam is renewed, Eve is magnified, and the “prophets dance with the apostles and the righteous”,[3] let us choose needful and “good parts” to ponder so that our new selves will be prepared for the joys and challenges that our community will face this year.

Amen.

[1] The full homily can be found here: https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2017/09/on-saving-nativity-of-our-most-pure.html/.

[2] Sitcheron 3, https://www.oca.org/files/PDF/Music/MajorFeasts/NativityTheotokos/09.08.litya.bakhmetev.pdf/.

[3] Second Exapostilarion, https://www.oca.org/files/PDF/Music/MajorFeasts/NativityTheotokos/09.08.exapostilarion2.znam.wgo.pdf.