December 8
Our eternal God has, through earthly time, prepared man – his highest creature, made in the image and likeness of himself – to receive him as one of our own. God came to earth in human form at a particular time in history, in a particular place, taking his humanity from a particular woman in order to restore that image. Through the Incarnation of God the Son and His Resurrection from the dead, we have been shown the way to Heaven.
The preparation for the Nativity of Christ took many years: the Hebrew people were chosen to be the ones to receive the Savior; their knowledge of One God, the Law he gave, the establishment of the royal line of King David ,the prophecies of a Messiah – all these were part of God’s preparation.
In God’s plan, it was necessary to prepare a young woman to become the Mother of his Son – the Mother of God – and this preparation began with the lives of her parents. According to Tradition, Joachim was a descendant of King David and Anna was the daughter of a priest of the tribe of Levi. Her sisters were Mary (the mother of Salome) and Zoia (the mother of Elizabeth who bore St. John the Baptist). Joachim and Anna were a devout couple who had longed for a child but who remained childless. When they went from their home in Nazareth to Jerusalem to make their offering in the Temple, Joachim was rebuked by the High Priest, Issachar, and told that he was unworthy because of his lack of children, a sign of God’s disfavor.
In their shame and grief, they returned home and prayed even more fervently for a child. An angel of the Lord appeared to each of them with the tidings that they would have a child. Just as God had given a child to Abraham and Sarah in their old age, Joachim and Anna would have a child who would bring blessings to whole human race. Anna then conceived Mary and God’s plan for man’s salvation continued.
The Church established a feast day in honor of this wondrous event. It appeared on the liturgical calendar of the St. Sabas monastery before the 6th century. According to Dom Prosper Gueranger, the feast began to be celebrated in the West by the 8th century, when it was established in Spain. A marble calendar table in Naples from the 8th century includes the feast. In 1049, a Council in Germany sanctioned the feast day and in 1066 it was established in England and from there, throughout the Western world. It was not until 1854 that Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception – that Mary had been born free from original sin.
We call Mary all holy and all pure, but we do not share the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Our Antiochian Archdiocese provides the Orthodox perspective on this dogma:
The Orthodox Church does not accept the teaching that the Mother of God was exempted from the consequences of ancestral sin (death, corruption, sin, etc.) at the moment of her conception by virtue of the future merits of Her Son. Only Christ was born perfectly holy and sinless, as Saint Ambrose of Milan teaches in Chapter Two of his Commentary on Luke. The Holy Virgin was like everyone else in Her mortality, and in being subject to temptation, although She committed no personal sins. She was not a deified creature removed from the rest of humanity. If this were the case, She would not have been truly human, and the nature that Christ took from Her would not have been truly human either. If Christ does not truly share our human nature, then the possibility of our salvation is in doubt.
In Western Rite Orthodoxy, we continue to celebrate this feast on the early Western date, December 8, instead of the Eastern date of December 9. With joy, we give thanks to Almighty God for the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a part of his unfolding plan for our salvation.
Blest guardian of all virgin souls, portal of bliss to man forgiven, Pure Mother of Almighty God, thou hope of earth and joy of heaven!
Fair Lily found among the thorns, most beauteous Dove with wings of gold, Rod from whose tender root upsprang that healing Flower so long foretold.
Thou Tower against the dragon proof, thou Star to storm-tossed voyagers dear; Our course lies o’er a treacherous deep, thine be the light by which we steer.
Scatter the mists that round us hang; keep far the fatal shoals away;
and while through darkling waves we sweep, open a path to light and day.
O Jesu, born of Virgin bright, immortal glory be to thee; Praise to the Father infinite and Holy Ghost eternally.
Anonymous 17th century Morning Office Hymn for the Conception of the BVM; St. Ambrose Hymnal #171