https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=97ZBtT1i_FI
Father Marcus asked me to speak a little bit about the icons of the Nativity of the Mother of God and to be honest, I felt like the icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God is quite straightforward. If you look at it, you pretty much didn’t understand what is going on. So I thought I’d rather want to propose a few thoughts about the very piece that we’re celebrating. The fact that our liturgical year starts with the celebration of the birth of the Mother of God and then ends with her falling asleep. It was great to hear the readings today and to hear this reading from Genesis and this idea of the house of God, this reading that we heard from Ezekiel, the closed gate and also the proper the house of wisdom. And what we see in the reading of the song, all that we’re hearing about is this notion of the sacred place, of this holy place that is there, that is prepared, that is built, that is ready to deceive the Lord. In the book of Genesis we, one of the things that happens at the fall is that God curses the birth, curses the birth. And in the Bible, in the Old Testament, we see this idea that the birth of the first reappears in different ways. And one of the ways in which it appears is this image of the barren woman that we find in the Old Testament over and over. Sarah, Rachel, we have this image of the barren woman. So a lot of times people, especially Protestants, they murder a lot of things like the beast of the liturgy of the Mother of God. These traditions that have been gathered from extra biblical materials, we talk about the gladiator of the Mother of God. But once we understand the pattern of scripture and we see this image of the barren woman, we understand that this part, this notion, this story of St. Anne, this barren woman who gives birth to the pure virgin, that’s one of the stories that is there from the beginning of scripture and follows all the way through into the New Testament. One of the most, one of the most, one of the most, let’s say, visible examples of that is when the Hebrews are in the desert and they encounter the bitter waters, encounter the water that they cannot drink. Bitterness is related to barrenness. There’s even another place in the Old Testament where a woman who’s lost one of her children says, now call me bitter. That’s become my name. This notion of waters that aren’t useful, that aren’t productive of life. And the encounter of those bitter waters with the tree is what produces the sweet waters, what produces the pure waters. So we hear it in the song, if you listen to the choir sing, you heard it said, our barren nature, God has healed, has set aside our barren nature. Because the story, the story, you need the story of the New Testament here. We always have to remember that it’s talking about us. The house is talking about us. We are also that barren land. We are also that barren woman. And through prayer, through faith, is how we are called, we are all called to become the other woman. We are all called to become the pure woman. So this transition that we see in the story, saying, and he deferred to the virgin, that’s the return into the garden. Moving out of the barren land, entering into that holy place. That’s why the mother of God, even in her story as a child, is always being related to the holy place of the temple. She’s mending the veil of the temple. She’s secretly hidden in the holy place. Because that’s who she is. She is that holy place. And so even though we, like I said, as we understand the spirit of the scripture and we see that pattern in the scripture, we understand that this transition from the barren woman that we’ve seen so many times in the Old Testament, who gives birth to the pure woman, who then becomes the holy place, it is completely, it is one of those fulfillments. One of those places where we see the whole puzzle of the fall and the problem that it brought about to fulfill itself in the life of the mother of God as she becomes the place of our Lord. And so that is why in the current little year we start with that prepared preparation. We start with that opening up of the space. The talk of the garden, this holy place, and that’s, like I said, that’s us. That’s what we have to become. We have to prepare ourselves. We have to build the house of God in our souls so that we can have that encounter with our Lord. And so those are the little thoughts that I wanted to give you today. Especially, like I said, we live in North America, which is not as Bible-believing Christians, but when we, like I said, when we see that pattern in scripture, which is how much it reveals itself, we can understand why the church has brought in this extra biblical tradition. Because it’s helping us see what exactly this is all about. What is the story about? Thank you for your time.