09/08/2025
The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary is celebrated by the Church on September 8th, having been chosen before the ages by Divine Providence to bring about the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. She is revealed as the Mother of the Savior of the World, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This event has brought to earth the grace of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of Truth, piety, virtue and everlasting life. The Theotokos is for all of us a merciful Intercessor and Mother, to Whom we have recourse with filial devotion.
Тhe blessed couple - Joachim and Anna - appeared as the fertile soil on which such a wondrous offshoot could sprout - the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Three days' journey from Jerusalem was the small town of Nazareth. There lived the righteous Joachim and Anna, whom the holy Church calls "God-fearers". Joachim came from the house of David, and Saint Anna from the house of Aaron. They were very generous, charitable. They spent only a third of their income on themselves. The other third they sacrificed for the temple, and the last third they gave to the poor. Daily sorrow darkened the lives of these good people: they had no children. This was considered a great misfortune among the Israelites, for childless parents were deprived of the hope of having the expected Messiah as their offspring. Jehoiakim went into the wilderness and spent 40 days there in prayer and strict fasting. He prayed earnestly that God would have mercy on him, that He would do a miracle - that he too would become a father, as Abraham once became a father in his old age. At the age of three, little Mary, the future most holy Mother of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was taken to the temple in Jerusalem. Thus her parents fulfilled their promise: they gave their only offspring into the service of God.
Troparion
Your Nativity, O Virgin, has proclaimed joy to the whole universe!
The Sun 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.
O Most Holy Lady, divinely chosen Mother of Christ our Savior, sought from God through sacred prayers, consecrated to Him and beloved by Him! Who shall not bless Thee, or who shall not hymn Thy glorious Nativity? For Thy birth became the beginning of salvation for mankind, and we, who sit in the darkness of transgressions, behold Thee as the dwelling-place of the Unapproachable Light.
No tongue, however eloquent, can worthily extol Thee, for Thou hast been exalted above the Seraphim, O All-Pure One. Yet accept this humble praise from Thy unworthy servants, and do not reject our supplications. We confess Thy majesty, fall down before Thee in compunction, and as a loving and merciful Mother, we boldly entreat Thee: pray to Thy Son and our God to grant us, who have greatly sinned, true repentance and a pious life, that we may do all that is pleasing to God and beneficial to our souls; that we may abhor all evil, being strengthened by divine grace in our good intentions.
And Thou, our unfailing Hope in the hour of death, grant us a Christian end, a safe passage through the dread aerial toll-houses, and the inheritance of the eternal and ineffable blessings of the Heavenly Kingdom, that with all the saints we may unceasingly proclaim Thy intercession for us and glorify the one True God, worshipped in the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
