Homily for the Nativity of the Virgin Mary (St Andrew of Crete († 740))

"It is in this that the essential benefits of Christ consist; it is there that the mystery is made manifest, that nature is renewed: God became man and man assumed is divinised. So God's splendid and very manifest dwelling among men had to be preceded by an introduction to joy, from which would flow for us the magnificent gift of salvation. This is the purpose of the feast we are celebrating: the birth of the Mother of God inaugurates the mystery which ends with the union of the Word with flesh.

It is now that the Virgin has been born, that she is suckled, that she is being formed, that she is preparing to be the mother of the universal King of all the centuries. We receive from the Word a double blessing: he leads us to the Truth, and he detaches us from the life of slavery under the letter of the law. In what way? Undoubtedly, because the shadow is removed with the coming of the light, because grace replaces the letter with freedom. The feast we are celebrating stands on this frontier, because it brings together the truth with the images that prefigured it, because it substitutes the new for the old.

May all creation sing and dance, and contribute its best to the joy of this day. Let heaven and earth be one body. Let everything in the world and above join in the same festive concert. Today, in fact, the sanctuary is being created where the Creator of the universe will dwell; and a creature, by this brand new arrangement, is being prepared to offer the Creator a sacred dwelling place".

Source:-Saint Andrew of Crete, Homily on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.

 

To know more

 

-on Saint Andrew of Crete († 740)in the Marian Encyclopaedia

-on the birth of Mary, in the Marian Encyclopaedia

-on the birth of Mary in the liturgies of the worldin the Marian Encyclopaedia

-on the birth of Mary in artin the Marian Encyclopaedia