21 September 2024 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God

The Holy Nativity of Virgin Mary (Sept. 21 – Sept. 8, old style) is the first of the holidays dedicated to the most important Orthodox Christian Saints. According to St. Andrew of Crete “it is the beginning of holidays: it is a gateway to blessing and to the truth”. These words of one of the Church’s fathers explain the meaning of this feast in a figurative way: the miraculous birth to the elderly Joachim and Anna of a daughter, called Mary, who later brought forth our Lord Jesus Christ and became our heavenly protector.

Catholic Calendar

St. Matthew

Son of Alphaeus, he lived at Capenaum on Lake Genesareth. He was a Roman tax collector, a position equated with collaboration with the enemy by those from whom he collected taxes. Jesus’ contemporaries were surprised to see the Christ with a traitor, but Jesus explained that he had come “not to call the just, but sinners.” Matthew’s Gospel is given pride of place in the canon of the New Testament, and was written to convince Jewish readers that their anticipated Messiah had come in the person of Jesus. He preached among the Jews for 15 years; his audiences may have included the Jewish enclave in Ethiopia, and places in the East.