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| Icon showing Joachim and Anna submitting the baby Mary to the Temple. On the top left we see the angel giving food to St Mary. |
Today the liturgical calendar of the Indian Orthodox Church
commemorates yet another feast relating to St Mary - the feast of the entrance of
the Theotokos into the Temple of Jerusalem.
The pious parents of St Mary-the Theotokos, Joachim
and Anna were childless for a long time and hence had to face the shame and
humiliation of the society. With tears and prayers both Joachim and Anna sought
a child; Anna made a vow to dedicate the child to God. When St Mary was two
years old, Joachim proposed that they take the child to the Temple to dedicate
her to God, but Anna suggested that they wait one more year so that the child
may not seek the father or the mother.
When the child was three years old, Joachim invited
Hebrew females to accompany Mary while they take her to the Temple. As a child
eager to go to her Father’s home, the young child joyfully climbed the steps of
the Temple. The parents marveled, and praised the Lord, that the child had not
turned back nor was she weeping for her parents.
And the priest received her, and kissed her, and
blessed her, saying: “The Lord has magnified your name in all generations.
In you, on the last of the days, the Lord will manifest His redemption to the
sons of Israel”.
And he set her down upon the third step of the altar,
and the Lord God sent grace upon her; and she danced with her feet, and all the
house of Israel loved her!
St Mary-Theotokos was in the Temple of the Lord as if
she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an
angel. She was there in the temple until her betrothal to St Joseph the
Righteous.
By the intercessions of St Mary-the Theotokos and St
Joseph the Righteous, may the Lord have mercy upon us.
In Christ,
Rincy John
(Ref: The Protoevangelium of James; Ante-Nicene Fathers,
Volume VIII, edited by Roberts and Donaldson)
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