Christmas Day

(Taken From “Christ the Eternal Tao” by Hieromonk Damascene)

The Mind spoke, and through His Word answered the earth’s elemental moan.  Above that roaring cry He answered with a still small voice: “I will come. Will you receive me, then?”  But no man heard that voice.  Only a small young woman, who had lived, unknown, in silence and purity in the Great Temple was given to hear it.

And in a still, small voice She gave voice to the whole earth.  She answered for all those beings and created forms who could not speak; She answered for all the people who could not hear.  And to the question of the Uncreated Mind, She answered “Yes, I will receive You.  Be it unto me according to Your Word.”

In Her the Way had found the lowest place in the entire earth, the nadir of the Valley, the supreme humility, lowliness, and there He came and made His abode.  He took flesh of Her whom He loved above all others who dwelled on the earth, who was meek and humble like Himself.  And lowering Himself, emptying Himself, in His love, to the lowest place, He became a tiny child within Her, the Mystic Mother.

Because of Her profound and intangible humility, her gate, opened by no man, through which no one had passed through, became the gate from which came th Origin of heaven and earth.

Because She had returned to the state of the uncarved block, the pristine simplicity, She became the “mountain unhewn by the hand of man,” whom the Ancient Prophet had foretold.  And the Spirit, the Breath of Heaven, rested upon Her, the Valley of Humility, as He had upon the first-formed world.