Our Lady's Birthday

Your birth, O Virgin Mother of God, heralded joy to the Universe; for from you rose the Sun of Justice, Christ our God.  He took away the curse, He gave the blessing, and by trampling death, He gave us everlasting life.

—Byzantine Rite, Troparion of the Nativity of Our Lady

The Holy Roman Church faithfully re-echoes this ancient song of the Christian East:

Nativitas tua, Dei Genetrix Virgo, gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo; ex te enim ortus est sol justitiæ, Christus, Deus noster: qui solvens maledictionem, dedit benedictionem; et confundens mortem, donavit nobis vitam sempiternam.

— Magnificat anthem at Vespers, Nativity of Our Lady

Thus, throughout God's earth this day, all true Christians, faithful to the tradition handed down from the primitive Church, fulfil the prophecy in due time made by the Mother of God herself: Ecce enim, ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes – "For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed".  Let Protestants consider whether they are any ways obedient to this word of Holy Writ.

In honour of this great day, may I suggest we most respectfully hail the Blessed Virgin with the Ave Maria, as God's own angel-ambassador did?  It would be good to tell our Rosaries and thus commemorate the principal events of the lives of Mary and her Divine Son.  We will please her and the Almighty Who made her by imitating all her virtues, above all by giving the glory to God as she did in her Magnificat: "My soul magnifies the Lord... for He hath done great things to me".

St Romanos the Melodist

News from my friend David Schütz that he's applying to be considered for the permanent diaconate – please God, this will come to pass – made me think about sainted deacons, such as the three great martyrs SS Stephen (my confirmation patron), Lawrence and Vincent, and three great confessors among the glorified ranks of levites, SS Romanos the Melodist, Ephræm, and Alcuin of York.

St Romanos, a convert from Judaism and hierodeacon at Constantinople, is justly famed as a peerless hymnographer (the Akathist is attributed to him; it bears the same indulgences nowadays as the Rosary); one of his greatest compositions, legendarily given him by the Blessed Virgin herself, together with the gift of melodious singing, is his Nativity Kontakion (see icon: he's holding the text she gave him): in its full form, it is a dialogue between Our Lady and the Magi, since in the Byzantine Rite the Gospel of Christmas Day is St Matthew ii, 1-12; as this is the Western Rite Gospel for the Epiphany, whose sometime Octave is still in progress, it seems most appropriate at this season to link to it here.

As to venerating St Romanos himself, these are the Byzantine Kontakion and Troparion for him, who is feasted on the 1st of October:

Thou wast adorned from childhood with the godly virtues of the Spirit; thou wast a precious adornment of the Church of Christ, all wise Romanos, for thou didst make it lovely with beautiful hymnody.  Therefore, we entreat thee, grant thy divine gift to those who desire it, that we may cry out to thee: Rejoice, all-blessed Father, beauty of the Church.

Thou didst gladden Christ's Church by thy melodies like an inspired heavenly trumpet.  For thou wast enlightened by the Mother of God and didst shine on the world as God's poet.  We lovingly honour thee, O righteous Romanos.

The couplet given in the Menaion for St Romanos is quite beautiful, I found (thanks to a consultation of the Acta Sanctorum for October, Tome I, pp. 56-59):

Before indeed with hymns Romanos celebrated the Divine Word; 

But he celebrates now, however, with angels.