The Maronite Season of the Nativity or the Announcement, meaning the Announcement of the Birth of the Messiah, is a season of the miraculous. It is full of miracles, and we insist that the miracles of the season are to be understood literally, and not only as symbols. In the events we remember at this time, we see heaven putting forth its power and working wonders on the earth.
I would go so far as to say that if we do not acknowledge and celebrate the supernatural origin of Christianity, we cannot understand Christianity – rather, we remake it as a sort of human philosophy and ideology with some fetching stories attached. The feasts we celebrate on each Sunday in the Season are also observed on each day of the week which follows them. They are the spine of the season, the destinations of the Christmas journey. There are nine such feasts, two of which, Christmas and the Circumcision can fall on any day of the week, not necessarily Sunday.
- The Announcement to Zechariah (Luke 1:5-21 and 57-79)
- The Announcement to Mary (Luke 1:26-38)
- The Visitation of the Virgin to Elizabeth (Luke 1:39-56)
- The Birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1:57-66)
- The Revelation to St Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25)
- Genealogy Sunday (the Sunday before Christmas) (Matthew 1:1-17)
- Christmas, or the Birth of the Lord (Luke 2:1-20)
- Sunday of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple (the first Sunday after Christmas) (Luke 2:22-38)
- The Circumcision of Our Lord, New Year’s Day (for some years now, World Peace Day) (Luke 2:21)
The proper attitude for this Season is one of joyful anticipation, and then delight and gladness at the birth of the Lord. It is a time to recover within ourselves the purity and innocence of the infant we were once were. We cannot live that innocence all the rest of our lives, after all, we are no longer children and must put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11). But that is not all – we can still have the influence of that cleanness, and indeed we should, for Our Lord Himself told us that we must become like little children (Matthew 18:13, where Our Lord said in a literally translation: “Amen, I say to you, if you do not change and become like little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens.”)
My conclusion from this is that the Season of the Nativity is the ideal time to take this teaching of the Lord seriously, by joining with all our mind and spirit into the birth of the Lord, and His purity, goodness, simplicity, and innocence. It is a time to put away sins and the sinning heart, and to change our mind from one which approves of, or contemplates with equanimity those ways of the world which are corrupt and contrary to His will and commandments.