Today is the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. An early second century work, the Protoevangelium of James, describes Marys father Joachim as a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joachim was deeply grieved, along with his wife Anne, by their childlessness. And so they began to devote themselves to prayer and fasting. As it turned out, however, the couple were to be blessed even more abundantly than Abraham and Sarah, as an angel revealed to Anne when he appeared to her and prophesied that all generations would honour their future child: The Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth, and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world. After Marys birth, according to the Protoevangelium, Anne made a sanctuary in the infant girls room, and allowed nothing common or unclean on account of the special holiness of the child. The same writing records that when she was one year old, her father made a great feast, and invited the priests, and the scribes, and the elders, and all the people of Israel. The Protoevangelium goes on to describe how Marys parents, along with the temple priests, subsequently decided that she would be offered to God as a consecrated Virgin for the rest of her life, and enter a chaste marriage with the carpenter Joseph. St Augustine described the birth of Mary as an event of cosmic and historic significance, and an appropriate prelude to the birth of Jesus Christ: She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth, the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 12:47:53 +0000