Saturday, September 8, 2012

Feast of the Nativity of our Most Holy Lady the Θεοτοκoς


What is this sound of feasting that we hear?
Joachim and Anna mystically keep festival.
“O Adam and Eve,” they cry, “rejoice with us today:
For if by your transgressions you closed the gates of Paradise to those of old,
We have now been given a glorious fruit,
Mary the Child of God
Who opens its entrance to us all.”

Thy nativity, O Θεοτοκoς,
Has brought joy to all the world:
For from thee has shone fourth
The Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God.
He has loosed us from the curse and given the blessing:
He has vanquished death, and bestowed on us eternal life.

By thy holy nativity, O most pure Virgin,
Joachim and Anna were set free from the reproach of childlessness,
And Adam and Eve from the corruption of death.
Delivered from the guilt of sin,
Thy people keep the feast and sing:
“The barren woman bears the Θεοτοκoς,
the Sustainer of our life.”

Be renewed, O Adam, and be magnified, O Eve;
You prophets, dance with the apostles and the righteous;
Let there be common joy in the world
among angels and mortals
For the Θεοτοκoς is born today of
righteous Joachim and Anna.

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