Today is the Feast of the Annunciation.

The feast takes places exactly nine months before the Nativity of Christ.

Troparion - Tone 4

Today is the beginning of our salvation,
The revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
Rejoice, O Full of Grace,
The Lord is with You!

Kontakion - Tone 8

O Victorious Leader of Triumphant Hosts!
We, your servants, delivered from evil, sing our grateful thanks to you, O Theotokos!
As you possess invincible might, set us free from every calamity
So that we may sing: Rejoice, O unwedded Bride!

Now in the sixth month…

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible. Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-38

Magnificat

And Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.”

Luke 1:46-49

Let it be to me according to your word.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The soul that through the grace of its calling resembles God keeps inviolate within itself the substance of the blessings bestowed upon it. In souls such as this, Christ always desires to be born in a mystical way, becoming incarnate in those who attain salvation, and making the soul that gives birth to Him a Virgin Mother.

~ St. Maximos the Confessor. On the Lord’s Prayer (Source: Manley, The Bible and the Holy Fathers p. 1000)

Incomprehensible Mystery

It would be impossible for a mere man to save people, for every man has need of the Savior: “for all have sinned,” says St. Paul, “and come short of the Glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Since sin subjects the sinner to the power of the devil, and the devil subjects him to death, then our condition became extremely desperate: there was no way to be delivered from death. Physicians were sent, i.e. the prophets, but they could only point out the malady more clearly. What did they do? When they saw that the illness was beyond human skill, they summoned the Physician from Heaven. One of them said, “Lord, bow Thy heavens, and come down” (Ps 143/144:5); others cried out, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed” (Jer 17:14); “Turn to us, O God, and cause Thy face to shine; and we shall be delivered” (Ps 79/80:3).

Still others said, “But will God truly dwell with man upon the earth?” (3/1 Kgs 8:27); “let Thy tender mercies go before us, O Lord, for we are greatly impoverished” (Ps 78/79:8). Others said, “Alas, my soul! For the godly have perished from the earth; and there is none among men who orders his way aright” (Mich 7:2). “Draw near, O God, to my help” (Ps 69/70:1). “Though He should tarry, wait for Him; for He will surely come, and will not tarry” (Hab 2:3). “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant; for I have not forgotten Thy commandments” (Ps 118/119:176). “God our God will come manifestly, and shall not keep silence” (Ps. 49/50:3).

… Know then that our Redeemer is not simply a mere man, since the whole human race was enslaved to sin. But neither is He just God, Who does not partake of human nature. He had a body, for if He had not clothed Himself in me, then neither would He have saved me. But, having settled in the womb of the Virgin, He clothed Himself in my fate, and within this womb He effected a miraculous change: He bestowed the Spirit and received a body.

… He alone is both in the bosom of the Father and in the womb of the Virgin; He alone is in the arms of His Mother and rides on the wings of the winds (Ps. 103/104:3). He, before Whom the angels bow down in worship, also reclined at table with publicans. The Seraphim dared not gaze upon Him, yet Pilate pronounced sentence upon Him. He Whom the servant smote is also the one before Whom all creation trembles. He was nailed to the Cross, and ascended to the Throne of Glory. He was placed in the tomb, and He stretched out the heavens like a curtain (Ps. 103/104:2). He was numbered among the dead, and He emptied Hell. Here on earth, they cursed Him as a transgressor; there in Heaven, they glorified Him as the All-Holy.

What an incomprehensible mystery! I see the miracles, and I confess that He is God. I see the sufferings, and I cannot deny that He is Man. Emmanuel opened the doors of nature as man, and as God He preserved the seal of virginity intact. He emerged from the womb at birth the same way He entered through the Annunciation. Wondrously was He both conceived and born: He entered without passion, and He emerged without impairment.

~ from the Sermon on the Annunciation by St. Proklos (from OCA)

Tent of Abraham

Taking pity upon that which He has made and bending down in His tender mercy, the Maker hastens to dwell in the womb of a Maiden, the Child of God. To her the great Archangel came, saying to her: “Hail, O thou who art full of divine grace, our God is now with thee. Be not afraid of me, the chief commander of the armies of the King. For thou has found the grace that thy mother Eve once lost: and thou shalt conceive and bring forth Him who is one in essence with the Father.” (2x)

Mary said to the Angel: “Strange is thy speech and strange thine appearance, strange thy sayings and thy disclosures. I am a Maid who knows not wedlock, lead me not astray. Thou sayest that I shall conceive Him who remains uncircumscribed: and how shall my womb contain Him whom the wide spaces of the heavens cannot contain?”

“O Virgin, let the tent of Abraham that once contained God teach thee: for it prefigured thy womb, which now receives the Godhead.”

~ Stichera 1, Small Vespers, Tone Four

Rejoice, O Lady

Today is proclaimed the good tidings of joy,
today is the festival of the Virgin;
things below are joined together with things on high.
Adam is made new;
Eve is freed from the primal grief;
and by the deification of the humanity which was assumed,
the tabernacle of our substance has become a temple of God.
O what mystery!
The manner of His emptying cannot be known;
the manner of His conception is beyond speech.
An angel ministers at the miracle;
a virginal womb receives the Son;
The Holy Spirit is sent down;
the Father on high is well pleased,
and according to their common counsel,
a covenant is brought to pass
in which and through which we are saved.
For this reason let us unite our song with Gabriel’s,
crying aloud to the Virgin:
“Rejoice, O Lady full of grace, the Lord is with you!”
From you is our salvation,
Christ our God, Who,
by assuming the nature that is our own,
has led us back to Himself.
Humbly pray to Him for the salvation of our souls.

~ Aposticha for the Feast, by Andrew of Jerusalem

Between Theophany and Pascha

St. Gregory the Theologian wrote seven key paragraphs that he used twice over, in two of his classic festal homilies, on Theophany and Pascha. On the Church calendar, the feast of the Annunciation comes between the two. St. Gregory’s message — the Gospel in a nutshell — applies to today’s feast just as well. Truly there is one Feast, of which all those we celebrate throughout the year are but single moments, and that is the coming among us of Our Lord.

Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? (Mark 2:19)

Read St. Gregory’s Seven.