Today’s feast has been celebrated for many centuries. It was known in the East as the feast of the Conception of St Anne long before it was known in the West as the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. We see from our liturgical typikon that the readings are actually the common readings for a feast of St Anne and not the common readings for a feast of Our Lady. It is also the general tradition in the East that this feast is celebrated on the 9th instead of the 8th of December. We have always celebrated it here on the 8th, though. As Eastern Catholics we are generally in traditional communion with the Orthodox Churches and also in canonical communion with Rome—and hopefully in spiritual communion with both, and with all those who sincerely believe in the Gospel of Christ. Perhaps the thing that tips the scales to the 8th is the fact that our country has been formally placed under the patronage of the Mother of God as the Immaculate Conception by the U.S. Bishops in 1846, and the 8th was the day set aside for this celebration. So we also want to be in communion with American Catholics in the celebration of the Patroness of our nation. In our own monastery, it also conveniently forms the third day of the “triduum” begun by the feast of St Nicholas (patron of our temple) and the anniversary of this temple’s consecration and dedication. All of that, however, is irrelevant to the mystery of the present feast.
Advent is a time for hidden mysteries, things obscurely indicated in prophecies, a time of anticipation for something not yet fully revealed. So this is an appropriate feast for this time of year. The mystery of Christ is in fact quite hidden in this mystery of Mary. On the great feasts of the Lord, even though his divinity is often somewhat hidden in his humanity, at least his face can be seen and his voice heard and his works recognized. In today’s feast, and unlike the general Advent awareness, Christ is not merely hidden in the womb of his Mother—his Mother is still hidden in the womb of her mother! This is truly a feast of humble yet holy beginnings.
We hear in the Gospel of this feast (Lk 8:16-21): “Nothing is hidden that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.” The secret mystery that was hidden in the womb of St Anne has since been made manifest and come to light: it is the mystery of the all-holy Mother of 
God, chosen to be the only one who would give flesh to the eternal Son of God, who would thus be our Savior, offering his humanity in sacrifice so that our sins might be forgiven and we be judged worthy of Paradise.
The early fathers of the Church spoke of Mary as the “New Eve” who perfectly obeyed the will of God, unlike the first Eve. Mary was, in a sense, a new Paradise—pristine, holy, untouched by evil—from which the New Adam could emerge, the Son of God who would raise up those afflicted with the mortal corruption of the fallen first Adam.
For her unique task, the Godbearer had to be uniquely holy. For how could anything marred by sin or any sort of imperfection bring the all-holy Lord into this world? Wordsworth famously called Mary “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” When the Archangel came to announce the Incarnation to her, he said that nothing is impossible for God. So it was possible for God to make of Mary a “new creation” in anticipation of, and for the sake of, the salvation to be wrought by her Son.
In a common liturgical prayer to the Mother of God, we call her “the ever-blessed and completely sinless one.” Some say she was sanctified at the time of the Annunciation, when the Holy Spirit came upon her and the Power of the Most High effected the conception of the incarnate Son. But when the angel greeted her, he said that she was already full of grace (Gk. Kekharitomeni—for more on this, click here, and don’t ask me why the font is so tiny!). The tense expresses something done in the past that stands true in the present, as when the Scriptures quote a text, saying: “It is written…” That means it was written in the past and stands written today. So the angel was saying to Mary: “You who have been filled with grace and remain so even now.”
If she had been previously filled with grace, when did that occur? Where can a line be drawn? Should a line be drawn? At conception, an hour later, six months later, three years later, seven years later? The Mother of God is known in the East as the Panaghia, the “all-holy woman.” If it is in fact true that she is “all-holy,” could there ever have been a moment when she wasn’t holy?
St John writes of a “beginning” that eternally precedes all other beginnings (though there really is no adequate word for God’s eternal being): “In the beginning was the Word…” And the author of Genesis writes of the creation of the universe at the beginning of time: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” So I (with fear and trembling) propose another “in the beginning,” this time for Our Lady: “In the beginning of the existence of the Theotokos, the Lord God had made her holy…” It’s pointless to call her the Panaghia if we are to maintain that she was sanctified at some point in her life subsequent to her conception, necessarily implying that before that point she was not sanctified.
I think that the polemics surrounding the 19th-century papal definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception have somewhat deflected everyone’s attention from a simple and heartfelt devotion to the unique holiness of the Mother of God, and have forced people to “take sides” on the issue. For if the Pope is right, others must be wrong, and if the others are right, the Pope must be wrong, so come, good Christians, let us go to war! I do not think this is pleasing to Christ or to his Mother. I do not believe that every point on which theologians of East and West disagree is sufficient to throw the whole economy of salvation into a tailspin, though one can get that impression by reading some of them.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think I’d make either a good apologist or a good ecumenist. I’m too conciliatory for the former and too uncompromising for the latter. I’d rather remain at the contemplative heart of divine mysteries than at the academic periphery. I’d rather pray than argue, but I’ve nothing against sharing thoughts or insights on what God has revealed to us. Sometimes it can actually be downright helpful!
Today’s Gospel also says: “To him who has, more will be given.” This, with the necessary caveats, can be applied to the concept of “development of doctrine”—a concept that can certainly be abused, but one that still has been used fruitfully throughout the history of the Church. The Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils developed and formulated the doctrines of, for example, the Trinity and the Incarnation, which are indicated but not clearly spelled out or explained in detail in the Scriptures. It is the Holy Spirit, working through the Church that “leads [us] into all the truth,” a truth so vast that it cannot be instantly grasped by our human minds, and sometimes takes centuries of prayer and reflection and study to come to an adequate expression of it.
This applies to the mysteries of Our Lady as well, some of which are only hinted at or implied in the Scriptures. But I submit that to the one who has humbly welcomed the Scriptures and their gradually fuller interpretation and application in the Tradition of the Church, more will be given: more insight, further elucidation, deeper understanding, new perspectives on the unchanging truth revealed by God—while remaining true to the initial revelation. (An acorn does not look like an oak tree at first, but eventually it becomes one through an organic growth process.) So a feast of St Anne can become a feast of the Mother of God as the profound character of the mystery is more clearly recognized, as theology develops and prayer deepens. And inspired inferences concerning the holiness of Mary can develop into sound doctrine.
An Eastern Christian ought to be able to use the word “immaculate” for the Godbearer without raising eyebrows, suspicions, or hackles. For she is the Panaghia, the holy one consecrated and set apart by God as part of the mystery He planned from all eternity, to be revealed in human history—the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son, whose holy nativity we soon will celebrate in wonder and awe.
So let us now, as we pray so often in our services, “call to mind our all-holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God and Ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, and let us commend ourselves, and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.”
