In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. God is One.

Today is the forefeast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, and tomorrow is the feast itself that we celebrate with a divine liturgy. This is one of the major feasts of the Mother of God; and it is often called “The Presentation” because the parents of Holy Mary, Anna and Joachim, brought Holy Mary to the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and presented her to God.

There are no references to this feast in the Old or New Testaments, but the Infancy Narratives of James—an important second century document—tell us a great deal about what happened. As Metropolitan Kallistos has written: “The Orthodox Church does not place [this document] on the same level as Holy Scripture; [however,] it is possible . . . to accept the spiritual truth which underlies this narrative, without necessarily attributing a literal and historical exactness to every detail.” Now that is what we are seeking today “spiritual truth.”

The parents of Holy Mary, Anna and Joachim, had waited childless for more than fifty years of their marriage; and, like Abraham and Sarah, they were delighted in their old age to have a child. Yet, in keeping with their promise to God, they brought her to the Temple when she was about three years old, to serve with other girls in the Temple. She did not return home. Today let’s consider an important question: Why did Anna and Joachim give Mary up from her happy home to be raised in the living quarters of the Temple?

The answer is rather surprising: Because they loved her so much and they loved God so much! It was this love of Anna and Joachim for Holy Mary and their love of God that gave them the strength to give her up for God’s purposes without being sure what those purposes would be. For Holy Mary, it would be a life of some 10 years helping out in the Temple, sewing vestments and praying that prepared her to participate in the Incarnation, to become pregnant with Jesus Christ and to enable Christ to become a human being. Just as the parents of Holy Mary presented her in the Temple without knowing how God would intervene in her life, so Holy Mary herself was not aware of how her quiet, prayerful life in the Temple was preparing her to be with Joseph and to receive the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

God often blesses and calls on particular families to serve Him; and that was what happened here. Anna’s father and mother, the priest Matthan and Mary, had three daughters named Mary, Zoia and Anna. Mary was married in Bethlehem and gave birth to Salome, who was to become one of the early followers of Jesus Christ. Zoia was also married in Bethlehem and gave birth to Elizabeth, the mother of St John the Baptist. Anna was married in Nazareth to Joachim and gave birth to Holy Mary. That was quite a family—three daughters, each of whose lives would be closely linked to Jesus Christ.

The Tradition is that Anna and Joachim visited their daughter Holy Mary often at the Temple, until they both died before Holy Mary was eleven years old. They never lived to meet Jesus Christ, but their faith in God and in the ability and vocation of their daughter to serve God is quite beautiful. In a sense, it is with this feast of the Presentation that Holy Mary’s vocation to become the Theotokos begins, because Holy Mary starts to be prepared during the next decade to receive Jesus Christ in the Incarnation.

Tonight and tomorrow we honour Anna and Joachim as Patron Saints of Grandparents, because they were the grandparents of Jesus Christ, on His mother’s side. Khouria Sylvia and I have 14 grandchildren; and at times we get in trouble, saying too much or too little. We honestly could use some advice on what grandparents should do and should not do. Children, can you help us out? What do you like your grandparents to do? . . . And what should they not do? . . .

St Joachim died first, so St Anna was left as a widow—a wealthy widow who was a fine grandparent with considerable vision about how to serve her child Holy Mary and her grandson Jesus Christ and His followers. The Tradition is that St Anna bought two properties—one property at the gates of Gethsemane where Jesus Christ often prayed in the garden with His disciples and began the journey to the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The second property was in the valley of Josaphat where she built a family tomb. It was there that St Anna buried her husband St Joachim; and it was there that Holy Mary, the Theotokos, was buried. So even though Saints Anna and Joachim gave up their only child, Holy Mary, when she was three years old, they guided her to a life of great joy and fulfillment. It was from that family tomb that St Anna built that the Theotokos ascended to heaven.

Saints Anna and Joachim faced many years of hardship before they were blessed by God with the birth of Holy Mary. However, they both waited for God to act in their lives. They trusted that God would honour them with a child. Metropolitan Kallistos has written in The Orthodox Way of the challenge that faces each of us, just as it faced Saints Joachim and Anna; and I quote: “We are to hold in balance,” wrote Metropolitan Kallistos, “two complimentary truths: without God’s grace we can do nothing; but without our voluntary co-operation God will do nothing. . . . Our salvation results from the convergence of two factors, unequal in value yet both indispensable: divine initiative and human response. What God does is incomparably the more important, but [human] participation is also required” [end of quote]. Saints Joachim and Anna certainly responded with humility and love to God’s initiative.

It is God’s initiative and our co-operation in faith that has made possible the foundation and continuation of the Orthodox Church. In their lives of sustained prayer and service, Saints Joachim and Anna gave a profound response to God’s blessing by trusting God to bring up their daughter. We too are asked at various times in our lives to make a response to God’s initiatives in our lives. In a very real sense, by giving Holy Mary her title of Theotokos—Mother of God—we are also seeing her as the Mother of the Church—the person who has made possible the birth of God and the birth of His Church. In a similar manner, it is right then to see Saints Anna and Joachim as not only the grandparents of Jesus Christ, but also the grandparents of the Church and the blessings it gives each of us today.

Like Holy Mary and Saints Anna and Joachim, in our own lives we can build the Church—the people of God united in Christ—in response to whatever initiatives God takes in our lives. We can rely on the Church to help us respond to those initiatives from God. I close with the words of Archmandrite George, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of St Gregorios of Mount Athos, in his 1997 booklet, “Experiences of the Grace of God.” He wrote: “We have, my brethren, the blessing of having the Grace of God abide in our holy Church. We have the possibility to become familiar with God and to receive the experience of the Grace of God, to unite with Him” [end of quote]. That is precisely what Saints Anna and Joachim did—“to become familiar with God . . . and to unite with Him;” and that experience is also available to each of us.

And so we ascribe as is justly due all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen