Events for Saturday 21st November 2020

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Joachim and Anne, advancing in years but strong in their love of God, were disappointed because they had not been blessed with children.  They prayed to God asking Him for a child and they promised to raise the child in God's Temple.  Many years later, they had a baby girl and they  named her Mary.  The child was presented to be raised in the Temple when she was three years old. She remained in the house of God for twelve years, emerging at the age of fifteen with a purity and wholesomeness found in no other creature of God. Mary grew up to be a good and holy young woman who would become the Theotokos (in Greek, the bearer of God), the Mother of Jesus Christ.

This feast was already commemorated in the East by the sixth century. Pope Gregory XI heard of this feast being kept in Greece in 1372 and introduced it at Avignon, then residence of the popes of the time. In 1585 Pope Sixtus V extended it to the universal Church. It is celebrated on the 21st of November.

Hear, O daughter, consider, and incline your ear;
forget your people and your father's house;
and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him;

Psalm 44: 10,11