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- The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Jerusalem.
- When the holy and most pure child Mary (Mariam or Miriam in Hebrew)
reached the age of
three, her parents, the righteous Joachim and Anna, fulfilled the vow
they had made to dedicate
her to God. Going in procession with a company of maidens carrying
torches, they presented
their child at the Temple in Jerusalem, where Zecharias the High Priest
took her under his care, blessing her with these words: The Lord has
glorified thy name in every generation; it is in thee that He will
reveal the Redemption that he has prepared for his people in the last
days. He then brought the child into the Holy of Holies something
completely unheard-of, for under the Law only the High Priest was
allowed to enter the Holy Place, and he only once a year on the Day of
Atonement.
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(In the icon of the feast, the maidens who accompany the Theotokos
are shown bare-headed, as was customary for unmarried girls; but the
Theotokos herself, though only three years
old, wears the head-covering of a married woman to show her consecration
to God.)
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The holy Virgin lived in the Temple for the next nine years,
devoting herself entirely to
prayer. In this time she attained the utter purity of heart befitting
the destined Bearer of the Most High; she became in her own person the
fulfilment and condensation of all of Israel's
faithfulness. Saint Gregory Palamas says that, when the Theotokos
entered the Holy of Holies,
the time of preparation and testing of the Old Covenant came to an end
for Israel, which was
now ready, in the blessed Virgin, to bring forth the Savior.
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When Mary approached marriageable age, she was entrusted to the
chaste widower Joseph to guard her. (The Prologue says that a life of
intentional virginity was unknown among the Hebrews, so the righteous
Joseph undertook the forms of marriage so as not to cause scandal
among the people.)
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"Wherefore the Church rejoices and exhorts all the friends of God for their part to enter
into the temple of their heart, there to make ready for the coming of the Lord by silence and
prayer, withdrawing from the pleasures and cares of this world." (Synaxarion)
source: http://www.abbamoses.com |
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