Today is undoubtedly one of the
most important days in the Orthodox calendar. The Annunciation shows the
relationship between God and man and also God’s love for mankind. Without the
Annunciation and the coming of the Son, we, the created world, would not have
been saved. This festivity has four meanings: a theological, an
anthropological, a soteriological and finally a mariological one.
‘The Church’s hymnography
celebrates with wonderment the woman who was called upon to “contain Him that
nothing can contain.” It also calls the community of faithful to turn toward
the God of love who ineffably lowered himself to become man so that mankind
could realize the vocation for which it was created: to participate in the
divine life. All creatures are called upon to join in the jubilation of the
announcement that God’s project is about to be realized:’[1]
‘Let the heavens be glad and the earth
rejoice: for the Son who is coeternal with the Father, sharing His throne and
like Him without beginning, in His compassion and merciful love for mankind has
submitted Himself to emptying, according to the good pleasure and the counsel
of the Father; and He has gone to dwell in a virgin’s womb that was sanctified
beforehand by the Spirit. O marvel! God is come among men; He who cannot be
contained is contained in a womb; the Timeless [One] enters time; and strange
wonder! His conception is without seed, His emptying is past telling: so great
is this mystery! For God empties Himself, takes flesh, and is fashioned as a
creature, when the angel tells the pure Virgin of her conception: “Hail, thou
who art full of grace: the Lord who has great mercy is with thee.”’[2]
(Stichera from Lauds of the Annunciation).
[1]
Behr-Sigel, Elisabeth, The Ministry of
Women in the Church, (California, Oakwood Publications, 1991), p. 192.
[2] Mother
Mary, Kallistos Ware, The Festal Menaion,
(London, Faber and Faber, 1959), p. 443.
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