Commemorated on November 21
According to Holy Tradition, the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos
into the Temple took place in the following manner. The parents of the
Virgin Mary, Sts Joachim and Anna, praying for an end to their
childlessness, vowed that if a child were born to them, they would
dedicate it to the service of God.
When the Most Holy Virgin
reached the age of three, the holy parents decided to fulfill their vow.
They gathered together their relatives and acquaintances, and dressed
the All-Pure Virgin in Her finest clothes. Singing sacred songs and with
lighted candles in their hands, virgins escorted Her to the Temple (Ps.
44/45:14-15). There the High Priest and several priests met the
handmaiden of God. In the Temple, fifteen high steps led to the
sanctuary, which only the priests and High Priest could enter. (Because
they recited a Psalm on each step, Psalms 119/120-133/134 are called
“Psalms of Ascent.”) The child Mary, so it seemed, could not make it up
this stairway. But just as they placed Her on the first step,
strengthened by the power of God, She quickly went up the remaining
steps and ascended to the highest one. Then the High Priest, through
inspiration from above, led the Most Holy Virgin into the Holy of
Holies, where only the High Priest entered once a year to offer a
purifying sacrifice of blood. Therefore, all those present in the Temple
were astonished at this most unusual occurrence.
After entrusting
their child to the Heavenly Father, Joachim and Anna returned home. The
All-Holy Virgin remained in the quarters for virgins near the Temple.
According to the testimony of Holy Scripture (Exodus 38; 1 Kings 1: 28;
Luke 2: 37), and also the historian Josephus Flavius, there were many
living quarters around the Temple, in which those who were dedicated to
the service of God dwelt.
The earthly life of the Most Holy
Theotokos from Her infancy until She was taken up to Heaven is shrouded
in deep mystery. Her life at the Jerusalem Temple was also a secret. “If
anyone were to ask me,” said St Jerome, “how the Most Holy Virgin spent
the time of Her youth, I would answer that that is known to God Himself
and the Archangel Gabriel, Her constant guardian.”
But there are
accounts in Church Tradition, that during the All-Pure Virgin’s stay at
the Temple, She grew up in a community of pious virgins, diligently read
the Holy Scripture, occupied Herself with handicrafts, prayed
constantly, and grew in love for God. From ancient times, the Church has
celebrated the Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the
Temple. Indications that the Feast was observed in the first centuries
of Christianity are found in the traditions of Palestinian Christians,
which say that the holy Empress Helen (May 21) built a church in honor
of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple.
St
Gregory of Nyssa, in the fourth century, also mentions this Feast. In
the eighth century Sts Germanus and Tarasius, Patriarchs of
Constantinople, delivered sermons on the Feast of the Entry.
The
Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple foretells
God’s blessing for the human race, the preaching of salvation, the
promise of the coming of Christ.
DISCOURSE ON THE FEAST OF THE ENTRY
OF OUR MOST PURE LADY THEOTOKOS
INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES
by Saint Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica
If
a tree is known by its fruit, and a good tree bears good fruit (Mt.
7:17; Luke 6:44), then is not the Mother of Goodness Itself, She who
bore the Eternal Beauty, incomparably more excellent than every good,
whether in this world or the world above? Therefore, the coeternal and
identical Image of goodness, Preeternal, transcending all being, He Who
is the preexisting and good Word of the Father, moved by His unutterable
love for mankind and compassion for us, put on our image, that He might
reclaim for Himself our nature which had been dragged down to uttermost
Hades, so as to renew this corrupted nature and raise it to the heights
of Heaven. For this purpose, He had to assume a flesh that was both new
and ours, that He might refashion us from out of ourselves. Now He
finds a Handmaiden perfectly suited to these needs, the supplier of Her
own unsullied nature, the Ever-Virgin now hymned by us, and Whose
miraculous Entrance into the Temple, into the Holy of Holies, we now
celebrate. God predestined Her before the ages for the salvation and
reclaiming of our kind. She was chosen, not just from the crowd, but
from the ranks of the chosen of all ages, renowned for piety and
understanding, and for their God-pleasing words and deeds.
In the
beginning, there was one who rose up against us: the author of evil, the
serpent, who dragged us into the abyss. Many reasons impelled him to
rise up against us, and there are many ways by which he enslaved our
nature: envy, rivalry, hatred, injustice, treachery, slyness, etc. In
addition to all this, he also has within him the power of bringing
death, which he himself engendered, being the first to fall away from
true life.
The author of evil was jealous of Adam, when he saw him
being led from earth to Heaven, from which he was justly cast down.
Filled with envy, he pounced upon Adam with a terrible ferocity, and
even wished to clothe him with the garb of death. Envy is not only the
begetter of hatred, but also of murder, which this truly man-hating
serpent brought about in us. For he wanted to be master over the
earth-born for the ruin of that which was created in the image and
likeness of God. Since he was not bold enough to make a face to face
attack, he resorted to cunning and deceit. This truly terrible and
malicious plotter pretended to be a friend and useful adviser by
assuming the physical form of a serpent, and stealthily took their
position. By his God-opposing advice, he instills in man his own
death-bearing power, like a venomous poison.
If Adam had been
sufficiently strong to keep the divine commandment, then he would have
shown himself the vanquisher of his enemy, and withstood his deathly
attack. But since he voluntarily gave in to sin, he was defeated and was
made a sinner. Since he is the root of our race, he has produced us as
death-bearing shoots. So, it was necessary for us, if he were to fight
back against his defeat and to claim victory, to rid himself of the
death-bearing venomous poison in his soul and body, and to absorb life,
eternal and indestructible life.
It was necessary for us to have a
new root for our race, a new Adam, not just one Who would be sinless
and invincible, but one Who also would be able to forgive sins and set
free from punishment those subject to it. And not only would He have
life in Himself, but also the capacity to restore to life, so that He
could grant to those who cleave to Him and are related to Him by race
both life and the forgiveness of their sins, restoring to life not only
those who came after Him, but also those who already had died before
Him. Therefore, St Paul, that great trumpet of the Holy Spirit,
exclaims, “the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was
made a quickening spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45).
Except for God, there is
no one who is without sin, or life-creating, or able to remit sin.
Therefore, the new Adam must be not only Man, but also God. He is at the
same time life, wisdom, truth, love, and mercy, and every other good
thing, so that He might renew the old Adam and restore him to life
through mercy, wisdom and righteousness. These are the opposites of the
things which the author of evil used to bring about our aging and death.
As
the slayer of mankind raised himself against us with envy and hatred,
so the Source of life was lifted up [on the Cross] because of His
immeasurable goodness and love for mankind. He intensely desired the
salvation of His creature, i.e., that His creature would be restored by
Himself. In contrast to this, the author of evil wanted to bring God’s
creature to ruin, and thereby put mankind under his own power, and
tyrannically to afflict us. And just as he achieved the conquest and the
fall of mankind by means of injustice and cunning, by deceit and his
trickery, so has the Liberator brought about the defeat of the author of
evil, and the restoration of His own creature with truth, justice and
wisdom.
It was a deed of perfect justice that our nature, which
was voluntarily enslaved and struck down, should again enter the
struggle for victory and cast off its voluntary enslavement. Therefore,
God deigned to receive our nature from us, hypostatically uniting with
it in a marvelous way. But it was impossible to unite that Most High
Nature, Whose purity is incomprehensible for human reason, to a sinful
nature before it had been purified. Therefore, for the conception and
birth of the Bestower of purity, a perfectly spotless and Most Pure
Virgin was required.
Today we celebrate the memory of those things
that contributed, if only once, to the Incarnation. He Who is God by
nature, the Co-unoriginate and Coeternal Word and Son of the
Transcendent Father, becomes the Son of Man, the Son of the Ever-Virgin.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8),
immutable in His divinity and blameless in His humanity, He alone, as
the Prophet Isaiah prophesied, “practiced no iniquity, nor deceit with
His lips” (Is. 53: 9). He alone was not brought forth in iniquity, nor
was He conceived in sin, in contrast to what the Prophet David says
concerning himself and every other man (Ps. 50/51: 5). Even in what He
assumes, He is perfectly pure and has no need to be cleansed Himself.
But for our sake, He accepted purification, suffering, death and
resurrection, that He might transmit them to us.
God is born of
the spotless and Holy Virgin, or better to say, of the Most Pure and
All-Holy Virgin. She is above every fleshly defilement, and even above
every impure thought. Her conceiving resulted not from fleshly lust, but
by the overshadowing of the Most Holy Spirit. Such desire being utterly
alien to Her, it is through prayer and spiritual readiness that She
declared to the angel: “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto Me
according to thy word” (Luke 1:38), and that She conceived and gave
birth. So, in order to render the Virgin worthy of this sublime purpose,
God marked this ever-virgin Daughter now praised by us, from before the
ages, and from eternity, choosing Her from out of His elect.
Turn
your attention then, to where this choice began. From the sons of Adam
God chose the wondrous Seth, who showed himself a living heaven through
his becoming behavior, and through the beauty of his virtues. That is
why he was chosen, and from whom the Virgin would blossom as the
divinely fitting chariot of God. She was needed to give birth and to
summon the earth-born to heavenly sonship. For this reason also all the
lineage of Seth were called “sons of God,” because from this lineage a
son of man would be born the Son of God. The name Seth signifies a
rising or resurrection, or more specifically, it signifies the Lord, Who
promises and gives immortal life to all who believe in Him.
And
how precisely exact is this parallel! Seth was born of Eve, as she
herself said, in place of Abel, whom Cain killed through jealousy (Gen.
4:25); and Christ, the Son of the Virgin, was born for us in place of
Adam, whom the author of evil also killed through jealousy. But Seth did
not resurrect Abel, since he was only a type of the resurrection. But
our Lord Jesus Christ resurrected Adam, since He is the very Life and
the Resurrection of the earth-born, for whose sake the descendents of
Seth are granted divine adoption through hope, and are called the
children of God. It was because of this hope that they were called sons
of God, as is evident from the one who was first called so, the
successor in the choice. This was Enos, the son of Seth, who as Moses
wrote, first hoped to call on the Name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26).
In
this manner, the choice of the future Mother of God, beginning with the
very sons of Adam and proceeding through all the generations of time,
through the Providence of God, passes to the Prophet-king David and the
successors of his kingdom and lineage. When the chosen time had come,
then from the house and posterity of David, Joachim and Anna are chosen
by God. Though they were childless, they were by their virtuous life and
good disposition the finest of all those descended from the line of
David. And when in prayer they besought God to deliver them from their
childlessness, and promised to dedicate their child to God from its
infancy. By God Himself, the Mother of God was proclaimed and given to
them as a child, so that from such virtuous parents the all-virtuous
child would be raised. So in this manner, chastity joined with prayer
came to fruition by producing the Mother of virginity, giving birth in
the flesh to Him Who was born of God the Father before the ages.
Now,
when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had been granted their
wish, and that the divine promise to them was realized in fact, then
they on their part, as true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow
given to God as soon as the child had been weaned from milk. They have
now led this truly sanctified child of God, now the Mother of God, this
Virgin into the Temple of God. And She, being filled with Divine gifts
even at such a tender age, ... She, rather than others, determined what
was being done over Her. In Her manner She showed that She was not so
much presented into the Temple, but that She Herself entered into the
service of God of her own accord, as if she had wings, striving towards
this sacred and divine love. She considered it desirable and fitting
that she should enter into the Temple and dwell in the Holy of Holies.
Therefore,
the High Priest, seeing that this child, more than anyone else, had
divine grace within Her, wished to set Her within the Holy of Holies. He
convinced everyone present to welcome this, since God had advanced it
and approved it. Through His angel, God assisted the Virgin and sent Her
mystical food, with which She was strengthened in nature, while in body
She was brought to maturity and was made purer and more exalted than
the angels, having the Heavenly spirits as servants. She was led into
the Holy of Holies not just once, but was accepted by God to dwell there
with Him during Her youth, so that through Her, the Heavenly Abodes
might be opened and given for an eternal habitation to those who believe
in Her miraculous birthgiving.
So it is, and this is why She,
from the beginning of time, was chosen from among the chosen. She Who is
manifest as the Holy of Holies, Who has a body even purer than the
spirits purified by virtue, is capable of receiving ... the Hypostatic
Word of the Unoriginate Father. Today the Ever-Virgin Mary, like a
Treasure of God, is stored in the Holy of Holies, so that in due time,
(as it later came to pass) She would serve for the enrichment of, and an
ornament for, all the world. Therefore, Christ God also glorifies His
Mother, both before, and also after His birth.
We who understand
the salvation begun for our sake through the Most Holy Virgin, give Her
thanks and praise according to our ability. And truly, if the grateful
woman (of whom the Gospel tells us), after hearing the saving words of
the Lord, blessed and thanked His Mother, raising her voice above the
din of the crowd and saying to Christ, “Blessed is the womb that bore
Thee, and the paps Thou hast sucked” (Luke 11:27), then we who have the
words of eternal life written out for us, and not only the words, but
also the miracles and the Passion, and the raising of our nature from
death, and its ascent from earth to Heaven, and the promise of immortal
life and unfailing salvation, then how shall we not unceasingly hymn and
bless the Mother of the Author of our Salvation and the Giver of Life,
celebrating Her conception and birth, and now Her Entry into the Holy of
Holies?
Now, brethren, let us remove ourselves from earthly to
celestial things. Let us change our path from the flesh to the spirit.
Let us change our desire from temporal things to those that endure. Let
us scorn fleshly delights, which serve as allurements for the soul and
soon pass away. Let us desire spiritual gifts, which remain
undiminished. Let us turn our reason and our attention from earthly
concerns and raise them to the inaccessible places of Heaven, to the
Holy of Holies, where the Mother of God now resides.
Therefore,
in such manner our songs and prayers to Her will gain entry, and thus
through her mediation, we shall be heirs of the everlasting blessings to
come, through the grace and love for mankind of Him Who was born of Her
for our sake, our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory, honor and
worship, together with His Unoriginate Father and His Coeternal and
Life-Creating Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
TROPARION - TONE 4
Today is the prelude of the good will of God, / of the preaching of the
salvation of mankind. / The Virgin appears in the temple of God, / in
anticipation proclaiming Christ to all. / Let us rejoice / and sing to
her: / "Rejoice, O Fulfillment of the Creator's dispensation."
KONTAKION - TONE 4
The most pure Temple of the Savior; / the precious Chamber and Virgin; /
the sacred Treasure of the glory of God, / is presented today to the
house of the Lord. / She brings with her the grace of the Spirit, /
therefore, the angels of God praise her: / “Truly this woman is the
abode of heaven.”
SOURCE:
SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2012(with 2011's link here also and further, 2010, 2009, 2008 and even 2007!)
Commemorated on November 30
