Today the glad tidings go forth to the world. Today sweet fragrance is wafted forth, foretelling the glad tidings of salvation; and the barrenness of our nature hath been united: for the barren one hath become a mother to the one who remained a virgin after giving birth to the Creator; from whom cometh the God in nature, taking a foreign nature and working salvation in the flesh for the lost, Christ, the Lover of mankind, and the Deliverer of our souls.
~Stephen the Jerusalemite, Second of his Stichera on “O Lord, I have cried…” at Vespers
The Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, Divine Prayers and Services: Third Edition, Seraphim Nassar (ed), Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, Englewood, NJ, 1979, p. 284.
hat tip: Church Fathers Wisdom (Dynamis)
