What is every child’s favorite day of the year? His own birthday. Next favorite? The birthday of any friend. Children love to celebrate birthdays. So does Christ the Savior Academy. It is fitting then that four weeks into the school year – on September 8 – we celebrate one of the twelve great feasts of the church: the birthday of Saint Mary, the mother of our God. The Feast of the Nativity of Mary teaches us five important lessons that as parents we must pass onto our children. As we celebrate the saints in this blog series, we teach these points through telling, singing and baking – a recipe for remembering the saints.
The Despair of Joachim and Anna
Anyone who has ever struggled to conceive a child can feel the heartbreak of Joachim and Anna. Joachim was from the royal lineage of David. He and Anna loved each other and desired to serve God. It seemed they would be the perfect parents, yet Anna was barren. They prayed exceedingly for a child, but….
Crickets.
The Humiliation of Joachim
In Mary, As the Early Christians Knew Her, Frederica Mathews-Green recounts that Joachim was a rich man. He tithed double his share, but the high priest rebuked him. Why? Because Joachim and Anna didn’t have children, which was seen as God’s disfavor in the Jewish culture at that time. Joachim grieved and fasted forty days and forty nights and begged God for a child.
God Answers Anna
Anna, too, walked into her garden, sat under a laurel tree and cried. She begged God to give her a child, just as He had Isaac and Sarah in their old age. God heard her and sent his angel who prophesied that she would conceive.
“The Nativity of the Virgin” by Andrea di Bartolo, circa 1400/1405
Lesson 1: God’s Timing Is Not Our Own
The very conception of Mary was a miracle. Joachim and Anna were well-past child birthing years. They thought God had denied them their heart’s greatest desire. But God’s timing was not their own. Little did they know He had been planning the birth of their child from the beginning of the World. Their child had been chosen from all generations for a very special purpose: to bear what all the Universe cannot contain – God. God would, in fact, grant them a child. He would grant them the Theotokos, the Greek word for “the God bearer.” It wasn’t their timing. Nor the world’s. It was God’s perfect timing. Only God knows the past, the present, and the future. God may not come when we want Him, but He will always be on time.
Lesson 2: We Must Give Back To God What He Gives To Us
So, Joachim and Anna are given their hearts’ greatest desire. What do they do in return? They give Mary back to God. Church tradition teaches that Joachim and Anna took Mary to the temple at the age of three. They left her there. How could they? Mary was a gift from God, and so they gave her back to God. We hear the same teaching every Sunday in Liturgy when the priest sings the Eucharistic Prayer, “Thine own of thine own we offer up unto thee in behalf of all and for all.” As believers, we offer back to God the gifts that He has given us. We recognize that these gifts do not belong to us in the first place. Everything we have comes from God. With that perspective, giving generously is easy. It was never ours in the first place.
Lesson 3: We Must Prioritize the Spiritual Formation Of Our Children
Joachim and Anna gave Mary back to the temple in recognition that she was a gift from God. But they also did so because they wanted her to be formed spiritually. At the Temple, Mary learned about the scripture. Tradition teaches that she was even fed by the angels. She lived the life of the Church – praying and worshiping, daily. Imagine if her parents had not done this. How could she ever have been equipped to be the Mother of God? God desires our children to be saints. When we send them to schools where their spiritual formation is the foremost priority, we allow them to become all God has created them to be. Christ the Savior Academy educates the whole child – mind, body and soul – and allows them to live the life of the church daily.
Lesson 4: You Can Be All That God Created You To Be
Christ the Savior Academy is in the business of creating saints. Teachers often tell their students that they can be all that God created them to be. It’s not hyperbole. It is possible that they, too, can be saints. When the angel approached her and told her that she would bear the son of God, she sang, “Who am I that all generations should call me blessed?” A few days later, she visits her cousin Elizabeth and sings a hymn, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” In it, she quotes from the Scriptures she’d been hearing all her life. She recognized what God was doing in her life because she had studied the scriptures daily. God has a plan for your child too. Prioritize their spiritual formation so they can recognize God’s calling and have the courage to live up to it.
Lesson 5: Every Child Has a Role To FulFill In The Church
Church tradition teaches that as a young girl Mary was accomplished in weaving, well beyond her years. She was chosen by the priests to spend her childhood in the Jerusalem Temple to weave the veil that separated the people from the holy of holies, where God resided. Mary, particularly, worked with the purple and scarlet thread. The Orthodox church teaches that purple represents the Divinity of God and red represents humanity. What a perfect illustration of Mary – the human – who bore in her womb the God man. It is that very veil that Mary helped weave that was torn when Christ was crucified. Mary’s simple task that she had been given in the temple would ultimately foreshadow the role that she fulfilled in the church. She bore God and ended our separation from God. Your child also has a role to fulfill in the Church. Maybe he is to serve in the altar. She can help make Holy Bread. He might become a priest or a deacon. She might start a church ministry. Every one of us is called to serve the Church. Like Mary, will we answer, “yes”?
The Recipe for Teaching About Mary’s Birth
You can teach your children these five lessons by telling, singing and baking with them. Since children love nothing more than to celebrate a birthday, why not throw a birthday party for Mary?
Of course, the best way to celebrate this birthday is by attending the Liturgy on September 8.
Once you have celebrated her birthday with Liturgy at Church, celebrate her birthday at home.
Tell Mary’s Amazing Story
Here are some books your children might enjoy:
- Maria, the Mother of God by New Rome PressThe illustrations are beautiful. It tells the story from her conception to her barren mother St. Anna, to her Falling Asleep. This account of the Theotokos is told through story, hymnology, and captivating illustrations.
- The Mother of God in Icons by Marina Paliaki is a squishy board book that tells the story of Mary up through the crucifixion of Christ.
- The Story of Mary, the Mother of God by Dorrie Papademetriou. This brilliantly illustrated children’s book tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s childhood as it is told in Church tradition and apocryphal texts. This book was inspired by the famous mosaics in the Monastery of Chora (the Kariye Djami) in Istanbul, Turkey.You can also listen to it read aloud in the podcast Readings from Under the Grapevine HERE
- Heaven Meets Earth: Celebrating Pascha and the Twelve Great Feasts by Ancient Faith Publishing
- Twelve Great Feasts for Children by Exaltation Press
Celebrate the Saints with Singing!
Once you’ve shared Mary’s Story, solidify it in your children’s minds with singing songs about her. At every birthday party, we sing Happy Birthday. But at Mary’s birthday party, try singing songs about her life. Gigi Shadid, an Orthodox priest’s wife, was one of the original members of the steering committee that formed Christ the Savior Academy. Many of her songs discuss the life of Mary.
- The song “Feasts of Mary” By Gigi Baba Shadid will help your child learn about Mary’s Feast Days throughout the year from her Nativity through her death.
- “Full of Grace” is another song by Gigi Shadid about Mary. Your children can sing along with Gigi HERE.
- Finally, the Nativity of Mary is one of 12 Major Feasts of the year in the Orthodox Church. Why not teach your children all of the feasts through this song of Gigi’s: “Celebrate the Feasts”.
Bake A Birthday Treat to Honor Mary
After you’ve told Mary’s story and solidified those stories with songs, bake birthday cupcakes to honor Mary. In the Ascetic Life of Motherhood blog, Khouria Destinie, shows you how to make “Queen of Heaven Cupcakes”. I love the blue frosting and star sprinkles. Decorate your table with blue – for the divinity of Christ – and red for Christ and Mary’s humanity. Talk to your children about the colors and what they mean. Show them Mary’s icon. Then, have your children color her Icon. You can find the coloring page HERE.
A Final Note
We love Mary and respect her for her holiness, but as Orthodox Christians we don’t get her confused with God or think she has magical powers. As Frederica Matthewes-Green explains in her book, Mary, As the Early Christians Knew Her, “The whole point of her role in God’s plan is that she represented us; she was an authentic human being.” Let us adore Mary and live our lives as she did – in humility, in faith, and in love for her son, our savior. Let us rejoice with Joachim and Anna for the great joy that God granted them. To be cursed in the eyes of the world and, yet, exalted by God on high. Let us sing the The Annunciation Hymn with great joy –
“We praise your Child, and likewise hymn you
as a living temple, Theotokos;
for the Lord who holds all things in his hand dwelt within your womb,
and hallowed and glorified you
and taught all to cry to you.”
Holy Mother Mary, pray to God for us.
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