By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Our Lord Jesus Christ, wishing to prepare for Himself a living and holy dwelling place, sent His angel to the Righteous Joachim and Anna (from whom He willed that His mother according to the flesh would come forth), and foretold the conception of the barren and childless Anna, in order to make certain the birth of the Virgin. For this reason the holy Virgin Mary was conceived and born — not, as some say, at seven months or without a man, but was born after nine full months, and though her conception came from a promise of God, it also came through the marital union and seed of a man. For only our Lord Jesus Christ was born from the holy Virgin Mary in a manner ineffable and beyond explanation, as He alone knows, without the will of the flesh; and though He is perfect God, He took on fully the perfection of His incarnate dispensation, just as He created and fashioned human nature from the beginning.
Thus today we celebrate this feast, because it recalls the divine messages delivered by an angel, who brought the good tidings of the holy conception of the pure Mother of God. Fulfilling these divine messages, God — who created all things out of nothing — stirred the barren womb so that it might bear fruit. And He made a mother, who had reached deep old age without children, able to give birth in a wondrous manner, granting her this grace as the worthy conclusion of the righteous petition of the Righteous Ones. From this gift of God to them — namely the All-Holy Virgin — He Himself would be born as the incarnate God, since He willed that these prudent ones give birth to her who was destined and chosen from all generations.
The first point emphasized by the Service of this feast — drawing also from sources outside the New Testament (a sign, as we have said when discussing another feast of the Theotokos, of the Church’s freedom to receive material even from outside Scripture when it recognizes it as true) — is that the conception and birth of a child is not only a matter of its parents. Many couples, even without any specific medical problem, are unable to conceive, and as a result grieve, feel anxiety, and seek various solutions to overcome this trial. For the faith of our Church, conception and birth involve the cooperation of the couple and the active energy of God. “God opens the womb of the woman,” teaches the word of God — which means that the couple offers themselves, and God activates and transforms this offering so that fruitfulness may come forth. It does not matter that most people are not conscious of this reality. God’s energy works, even if unnoticed by many, just as it does in the existence of every human being and every created thing on earth — brought into being and sustained by God's energy, whether there is belief in Him or not. “For God is the one who gives to all life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25), according to the words of the Apostle Paul to the Athenians on the Areopagus.
The infertility of a couple therefore also depends on the will of God, meaning that in such cases some specific plan of His is at work — one that the couple usually cannot understand except after a short or long period of time. Yet awareness of this cooperation between God and human beings in so great a work — the coming into the world of a child — can awaken a person’s prayer, the seeking of God’s grace, so that even His plan might be “changed.” And indeed, not infrequently, God turns and listens to human petitions, granting the grace of childbearing to a woman, overcoming her barrenness.
We see this spiritual reflection very strongly, as already mentioned, in the present feast of the Conception of Saint Anna. The holy couple Joachim and Anna were childless, yet they did not lose hope in God. And this in a time among the Jews when barrenness was considered a great disgrace and shame, since it proved that the couple could not be the means through which the Messiah would come into the world. And so they gave themselves over to prayer. The dramatic intensity of the hymns reaches its height:
“Adonai Sabaoth, You who know the shame of childlessness: dissolve the pain of my heart, open the floodgates of my womb, and make me who am barren to bear fruit.”
And her prayer is heard. God looks upon the holy couple:
“Long ago, as she prayed with faith and supplicated God, Anna the prudent one heard the voice of an Angel, assuring her of the divine fulfillment of her requests.”
“God heard the groanings of Anna and the Lord heeded her supplication.”
The fact of God’s intervention — turning barrenness into fruitfulness — is taken up by the Hymnographer and expanded spiritually: besides recalling similar events in the Old Testament —
“You, O Almighty One, who once gave to Sarah in her deep old age her great son Isaac; You who opened the barren womb of Hannah, mother of Your prophet Samuel…”
— he teaches that God, just as in ancient times and just as now with Anna, but especially after His coming into the world, can transform the arid and graceless human nature, watering it so that it may bear fruit:
“Today the joy of the world is proclaimed, changing the pains of motherhood into cheerful gladness, and revealing that the barrenness of nature will become fruitful, multiplied by the works of grace.”
This means that we who now live after Christ, in whatever condition of dryness — spiritual or moral — we find ourselves, if we turn to God with faith, we will witness His wondrous intervention. God will open the gates of our hearts so that we may be flooded with the presence of His grace. As long as we persevere and remain steadfast.
And of course it is hardly necessary to add that the conception of Saint Anna is celebrated by the Church not primarily to show the reward of prayerful persistence, but because through this conception the foundations are laid for the birth of the One who, as a new heaven, would bring into the world the sun — Christ, the Savior of the world. With the perspective of the coming of the Lord, this feast shines, and thus becomes yet another occasion for glorifying His holy name:
“The new heaven is fashioned in the womb of Anna by the will of God the Creator of all; and from this heaven shone the unsetting Sun, enlightening the whole world with the rays of His divinity.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
