The 8th September, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has been the traditional date for being received members of the community at Nunraw Abbey.
"Turn to Mary for help. Mt. 1:1-16. 18-23".
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Icon of the Nativity of the Mother of God, egg
tempera on wood, Central Russia, mid-1800's.
(Photo © Slava Gallery, LLC; used with permission.)
History:
The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated at
least by the sixth century, when St. Romanos the Melodist, an Eastern Christian
who composed many of the hymns used in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox liturgies, composed a hymn for the feast. The feast spread to Rome in
the seventh century, but it was a couple more centuries before it was
celebrated throughout the West.
The source for the
story of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Protoevangelium of James,
an apocryphal gospel written about A.D. 150. From it, we learn the names of
Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, as well as the tradition that the couple was
childless until an angel appeared to Anna and told her that she would conceive.
(Many of the same details appear also in the later apocryphal Gospel of the
Nativity of Mary.)
The traditional
date of the feast, September 8, falls exactly nine months after the feast of
the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perhaps
because of its close proximity to the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Nativity of the
Blessed Virgin Mary is not celebrated today with the same solemnity as the
Immaculate Conception. It is, nonetheless, a very important feast, because it
prepares the way for the birth of Christ.
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