A refined celebration opened the feast-day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary this morning, 8th September, at the Crusader church of St. Anne in Jerusalem. This ancient festivity, which originated in Jerusalem, and of which we already have accounts dating back to the 4th century, was then introduced to Jerusalem and, with pope Serge I, to Rome and the whole of the West in the 7th century. The date was established with reference to the anniversary of the dedication of the ancient Byzantine basilica of St. Mary, the ruins of which can still be seen in the rocky complex of the Bethesda pool near the church of St. Anne.
This church, where Holy Mass was held on this occasion, marks the place where, according to the tradition inspired by the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim and Anne, Mary’s parents, lived and whose home is believed to have been close to the Temple. This is where the long and heartbreaking wait of this elderly couple, sterile for many years, happily came to an end: Mary came into the world and, with the birth of this very pure and immaculate creature, God inaugurates His project of salvation and opens the path to the renewal of humanity corrupted by sin. The crypt is formed by ancient grottoes, with the one in the centre dedicated to the Child Mary, whilst inside the church, the symbols of the two evangelists Matthew and Luke, who narrate episodes from the childhood of Jesus, are carved on the capitals of the two columns flanking the great altar.
On this feast-day morning, the Franciscan friars of the Custody, warmly welcomed by the White Fathers, who since the mid 19th century have been the custodians of this sanctuary, made a solemn entrance to the basilica of St. Anne and animated and said Holy Mass in French. The celebration was presided by Father Stéphane Milovitch ofm, currently Guardian of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and he was surrounded, in addition to the Franciscan community, by many other priests and religious of the Holy Land, who joyfully joined in the prayers on this day which is of such great importance for Christians. Mons. William Shomali, Auxiliary Bishop of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Consul-General of France in Jerusalem, Frédéric Desagneaux, with his wife, also attended the ceremony. The church was thronged with many religious, male and female, from many congregations, as well as many members of the local Arab Christian community and friends and pilgrims from various parts of the world.
Afterwards, the participants gathered in the very lovely setting of the large garden of the convent of the White Fathers, adjacent to the Church of St. Anne, for a serene convivial moment.
“When a child is born, the whole family is joyful and takes part in the celebration of the marvellous gift of a new life,” says Father Frédéric Manns ofm, professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, who also took part in the celebrations for the nativity of Mary. “And this is the case today for the Christian community all over the world. Mary is given to us like a very precious gift. After Eve’s refusal, who denied the project of God, Mary once again opens the hope of life for the entire human race, the possibility for each creature to return, thanks to Mary’s yes, to full dialogue and intimacy with the Creator.” John Paul II wrote in the Redemptoris Mater Encyclical: “The Virgin shines as the image of divine beauty, the abode of Eternal Wisdom, the figure of the one who prays, the prototype of contemplation, the image of glory: she who even in her earthly life possessed the spiritual knowledge inaccessible to human reasoning and who attained through faith the most sublime knowledge.”
Mary is the extraordinary spokesperson of the essential, the point of intersection between horizontal and vertical relations, the seat of the hidden correspondence between the divine design of infinite love and the figure of perfect humanity. In the dialogue between God and Mary, the disarmed and disarming force of the ethics of love, of a divine authority that is entrusted to the gratuitousness of the “yes” of a creature, matures to the full. Mary expresses the profound vocation of the human being to listen to the original language of God, to perceive and accept the Truth. She is plunged into the totalizing experience of the Revelation, and thanks to this, what by its very nature appears inaccessible, unpronounceable and inaudible, becomes on the contrary a point of contact and of intimacy with the human creature. The divine Truth thus comes to inhabit the life and the word of man, finding space in a new dimension of dialogue that is committed to giving continuity to the divine discourse in human history.
Mary’s story, of which we celebrate the beginning – with her birth – today, is continuously echoed in the story of a God who becomes needy and patient, in the chance of His confidence in entrusting His manifestation to the responsibility of an innocent creature. God is revealed in the profound beauty of this encounter and the Truth of the Revelation, eternally pronounced and which entered history forever with Mary, continues in an infinite dialogue.
By Caterina Foppa Pedretti
Photos by Marco Gavasso
This church, where Holy Mass was held on this occasion, marks the place where, according to the tradition inspired by the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim and Anne, Mary’s parents, lived and whose home is believed to have been close to the Temple. This is where the long and heartbreaking wait of this elderly couple, sterile for many years, happily came to an end: Mary came into the world and, with the birth of this very pure and immaculate creature, God inaugurates His project of salvation and opens the path to the renewal of humanity corrupted by sin. The crypt is formed by ancient grottoes, with the one in the centre dedicated to the Child Mary, whilst inside the church, the symbols of the two evangelists Matthew and Luke, who narrate episodes from the childhood of Jesus, are carved on the capitals of the two columns flanking the great altar.
On this feast-day morning, the Franciscan friars of the Custody, warmly welcomed by the White Fathers, who since the mid 19th century have been the custodians of this sanctuary, made a solemn entrance to the basilica of St. Anne and animated and said Holy Mass in French. The celebration was presided by Father Stéphane Milovitch ofm, currently Guardian of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and he was surrounded, in addition to the Franciscan community, by many other priests and religious of the Holy Land, who joyfully joined in the prayers on this day which is of such great importance for Christians. Mons. William Shomali, Auxiliary Bishop of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Consul-General of France in Jerusalem, Frédéric Desagneaux, with his wife, also attended the ceremony. The church was thronged with many religious, male and female, from many congregations, as well as many members of the local Arab Christian community and friends and pilgrims from various parts of the world.
Afterwards, the participants gathered in the very lovely setting of the large garden of the convent of the White Fathers, adjacent to the Church of St. Anne, for a serene convivial moment.
“When a child is born, the whole family is joyful and takes part in the celebration of the marvellous gift of a new life,” says Father Frédéric Manns ofm, professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, who also took part in the celebrations for the nativity of Mary. “And this is the case today for the Christian community all over the world. Mary is given to us like a very precious gift. After Eve’s refusal, who denied the project of God, Mary once again opens the hope of life for the entire human race, the possibility for each creature to return, thanks to Mary’s yes, to full dialogue and intimacy with the Creator.” John Paul II wrote in the Redemptoris Mater Encyclical: “The Virgin shines as the image of divine beauty, the abode of Eternal Wisdom, the figure of the one who prays, the prototype of contemplation, the image of glory: she who even in her earthly life possessed the spiritual knowledge inaccessible to human reasoning and who attained through faith the most sublime knowledge.”
Mary is the extraordinary spokesperson of the essential, the point of intersection between horizontal and vertical relations, the seat of the hidden correspondence between the divine design of infinite love and the figure of perfect humanity. In the dialogue between God and Mary, the disarmed and disarming force of the ethics of love, of a divine authority that is entrusted to the gratuitousness of the “yes” of a creature, matures to the full. Mary expresses the profound vocation of the human being to listen to the original language of God, to perceive and accept the Truth. She is plunged into the totalizing experience of the Revelation, and thanks to this, what by its very nature appears inaccessible, unpronounceable and inaudible, becomes on the contrary a point of contact and of intimacy with the human creature. The divine Truth thus comes to inhabit the life and the word of man, finding space in a new dimension of dialogue that is committed to giving continuity to the divine discourse in human history.
Mary’s story, of which we celebrate the beginning – with her birth – today, is continuously echoed in the story of a God who becomes needy and patient, in the chance of His confidence in entrusting His manifestation to the responsibility of an innocent creature. God is revealed in the profound beauty of this encounter and the Truth of the Revelation, eternally pronounced and which entered history forever with Mary, continues in an infinite dialogue.
By Caterina Foppa Pedretti
Photos by Marco Gavasso