St Peters Orthodox Church

God took away the shame of the barren Saints Joachim & Anna by healing them of their inability to have a child in their old age. Not only did God show mercy to them, He blessed them beyond what they could have every asked for or imagined. He granted them not only a child, but a child who would be chosen by God to bring Christ our salvation into the world. The Blessed Virgin was conceived in the same manner that all had been conceived since creation. And, she bore within her the same condition as a result of the Fall that all of us suffer as a result of the Fall. And this reality is critical. For as Christ is miraculously conceived in her womb, the Lord God of Israel would fully take our fallen humanity at that moment and join it to His Divinity and for all eternity. It is only by this act that we can be saved through Him. When we look at the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christ is revealed to us and, because of this, we see ourselves very clearly.