The Virgin Mary: A Celebration of Our Faith
Session 1: Nativity of the Theotokos -- Intermediate Group

Theme Of Lesson: Nativity of the Theotokos
Sub-Theme Mary’s humanity & God’s love

Objectives:

• Identify the parents of the Theotokos and retell the traditions regarding her birth.
• Contrast the attitude of Mary as the “New Eve” with that of Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the icon of the feast.

Resources:

• Bible
• Bible aids
• The following website will give you the Apocryphal writing of the noncanonical Gospel of
  James (Protoevangelian) that has the texts used in the feasts for the Theotokos: http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/gospels/gosjames.htm [Sections IV and V for the Nativity of the Theotokos]
• Genesis 3, esp. Genesis 3:1

Troparion of the Nativity of the Theotokos (Tone Four)
Your Nativity, O Virgin, has proclaimed joy to the whole universe!
The Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, has shone from you, O Theotokos!
By annulling the curse, He bestowed a blessing.
By destroying death, He has granted us eternal life.

Kontakion of the Nativity of the Theotokos (Tone Four)
By your Nativity, O most pure Virgin,
Joachim and Anna are freed from barrenness;
Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death.
And we, your people, freed from the guilt of sin, celebrate and sing to you:
"The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos, the Nourisher of our Life."

Hymn to the Theotokos
Virginity is foreign to mothers;
childbearing is strange for virgins.
But in you, O Theotokos,
both were accomplished!
For this, all the earthly nations unceasingly magnify you!

• See attached account of the Virgin’s birth from Celebration: Feasts and Holy Days by Robert Snyder (OCEC, 1995). Other excerpts in the following lessons are also from this source.

• Discuss how Mary’s birth began the events that reversed Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden and why Mary is considered the “New Eve.” A contrast chart on butcher paper is a good group activity.

• A copy of the icon will be included, as well as the section from The Icon Book.

Teacher’s Notes & Discussion-Starter Questions:

• Discuss:
  • a. What was the curse God put upon the serpent in the Garden of Eden?
  • b. How was the curse destroyed?
  • c. How did Christ conquer death?
• “Nothing about this event is mentioned anywhere in the Holy Scriptures. But why should there be? Is there anything remarkable, anything especially unique about the normal birth of a child, a birth like any other? And if the Church began to commemorate the event with a special feast, it was not because the birth was somehow unique or miraculous or out of the ordinary: but because on the contrary, the very fact that it is routine discloses something fresh and radiant about everything we call “routine” and ordinary, it gives new depth to the “unremarkable” details of human life. What do we see in the icon of the feast when we look at it with our spiritual eyes? There on the bed lies a woman, Anna according to Church tradition, who has just given birth to a daughter. Next to her is the child’s father, Joachim, according to the same tradition. A few women stand by the bed washing the newborn baby for the first time. The most routine, unremarkable event. Or is it? Could it be that the Church is telling us through this icon that every birth, every entrance of a new human being into the world and life is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique unrepeatable human life. The beginning of a new person. And with each birth, the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be his life, his path, his creation.” pp. 23 – 24, Schmemann.
  

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