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The Manna, the Tablets, and the Rod: On the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God
Liturgy and Life
The Manna, the Tablets, and the Rod:
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On the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God
by Hieromonk Herman (Majkrzak)
Every year at the end of November, we celebrate the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, the day when her parents brought her to live in the Temple at Jerusalem until she would become betrothed to Saint Joseph. This feast honors in particular the girlhood of the Mother of God. The surpassingly holy childhood of Our Lady was unique, just as unique as her surpassingly holy adulthood. She is, as the poet William Wordsworth wrote, “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” However, we all share the same human nature as the Mother of God. We are, all of us, sons or daughters of our common first-parents, Adam and Eve. And this means the life of the Holy Virgin is not only an exalted inspiration for us, but also a model. And she is a model for us not only in her motherhood, but also in her childhood.
The feast day’s reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews is instructive here:
This passage gives us a list of the sacred objects that were treasured up within that golden chest, called the Ark of the Covenant. All these objects bore some connection to the Exodus from Egypt, when Israel was delivered from slavery and crossed the Red Sea. But for the Church of the New Israel— that’s us—all of these objects are also understood in one way or another as prefiguring the Mother of God. They are foreshadowings—or, to use the technical term, types—of the Holy Virgin, each of them revealing something special about her. Thus the Church sings during the vesting of the bishop at a hierarchical Liturgy: “The prophets proclaimed thee from on high, O Virgin: the jar, the staff, the tables of the law…”
The jar containing the manna shows that the Virgin contained in her womb the Bread of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ. The tablets of the Law are a figure of Our Lady who bore the eternal Word of God, not engraved on stone, but formed from her very flesh and blood. And the rod—Aaron’s rod that miraculously blossomed and produced almonds—is, as the Canon for the feast explains, a prefiguring of the divine childbirth of the Holy Virgin (cf. Num. 17:8; Canon 2, ode 4, trop. 6, see Festal Menaion, p. 180).
But the Entrance of the Theotokos gives occasion to consider these three types or figures of the Virgin from a somewhat different vantage point. The manna, the tablets, the rod: each of them shows us an indispensable characteristic of true and godly childhood, and, therefore, of true and godly parenthood.
First, manna, of course, was the miraculous bread that God sent down every day on His quite ungrateful people as He led them through the desert. He nourished them despite their frequent complaining and grumbling. He lavished His love on them. He fed them with the finest wheat (Ps. 80:16). Our holy Lady, sojourning during the years of her girlhood in the Holy of Holies, was fed every day by an angel, who brought her heavenly bread.
The icon of the feast depicts this angel and this bread in the top-right corner. God nourished this holy girl, He lavished His love on her, and she received with gratitude and joy that which the old Israel received with grumbling. There are lessons here for parents and children both. It’s critical to show children affection, support, and warmth—and, of course, to feed them (every day!) whether they’re grateful or not. And kids ought to take it as a reminder to thank their parents for everything. Every day, and for every meal, parents deserve gratitude.
The Theotokos and Christ
Apse at Hagia Sophia (Mosaic, c. 867)
The food on the family table does not come down miraculously from heaven. No, it is provided and prepared by parents’ hard work.
Second, the tablets—the stone tablets on which the Commandments of God were inscribed by His finger (Exodus 31:18). Here we see an image of the duty of parents to instruct their children: to teach them, to raise them in the fear of God. From the depths of the sanctuary, Our Lady, throughout her childhood, listened attentively to the words of sacred Scripture being read to the people in the forecourt of the temple. God was instructing her; He was forming her. And when she heard these words, she kept them (cf. Luke 11:28). Saint Luke tells us, “she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (cf. Luke 2:19, 51). Indeed, the Church hails the Mother of God as the “living book of Christ” (Canon of the Akathist, ode 1; see Lenten Triodion, page 427).
As all parents know, they are their children’s first and most important teachers. But many of the curriculums our kids are likely to encounter later in life, perhaps especially in high school and college, may serve to undermine the intellectual and moral foundations necessary for a lifelong commitment to Christ. So as teachers, parents must make the Christian foundation laid at home as firm and stable as possible. Parents in the Church must make that foundation as firm and stable as they can. And let the children in our parishes remember to listen to their parents’ lessons and, like the Mother of God, carefully treasure their parents’ words in their memories and hearts.
Thirdly, there is the rod—the rod of Aaron that budded. A rod is used to guide and to correct. Now Our Lady, as a girl just as an adult woman, was sinless. She never once wavered from the will of God, and so Saints Joachim and Ann never had occasion to correct her. But they did guide her. There’s a touching detail in the events we remember on the feast: having arrived at the Temple to fulfill their vow to dedicate their daughter to God, Joachim and Ann are concerned that Mary, after taking her first steps toward the priest, might turn around and run back to her parents. After all, she was only three! So, as we sing at Vespers of the feast, they arrange for her friends, young girls her age, to go before her, carrying lit candles and torches, in order to attract her by the beauty of the lights toward her new home in the temple (cf. Aposticha, 3rd sticheron, Festal Menaion, page 171). In other words, Joachim and Ann deliberately plan a way to encourage their daughter to walk toward God—and away from them!
Entry of the Theotkos
Manuel Penselinos (Fresco, c. 14th century)
This is the kind of guidance that all parents are called on to give their children. Not that children should leave their parents by walking toward the world, not that they should show any dishonor to their parents and, by so doing, breaking one of the Ten Commandments, but that they should walk toward God—toward the God to Whom we owe the first place in our lives, Whom we must love more than parents or children or friends (cf. Mark 10:29–30).
And whenever parents give such guidance, it always involves self-denial. This is even more the case when it comes to offering correction or even punishment. We live in a culture characterized by overindulgence in every area of life, so it can be easy to feel guilty whenever we take steps to check the indulgence, the whims and desires, of our children, or indeed of anyone for whom we bear responsibility. Correction is almost always unpleasant for the one receiving it, certainly, but also for the one dispensing it. Yet, like that rod of Aaron that budded, correction can blossom forth and bear the peaceful fruits of human maturity, discipline, and flourishing (cf. Hebrews 12:11). And that is certainly a more worthwhile and lasting gift for our children than letting them be blown about their entire lives by every wind of passion, emotion, and instability (cf. Ephesians 4:14).
Of course, accepting chastisement with humility isn’t just for kids. After all, our God, as a true Father, chastens all of us, throughout our whole lives, because He loves us and desires that each of us will come to share His holiness (Heb. 12:10). This process can be difficult and painful. But we can take comfort in the fact that Our Lady, the most pure Mother of God, is praying for us all. She’s praying that when God corrects and disciplines us, we will not despise it but will take courage, accepting it with humility and even (if we can manage it) with gratitude (cf. Hebrews. 12:5; Proverbs 3:11). And the Holy Virgin is praying for us also that when God, as our true teacher, gives us a word of instruction, we will “hold it fast in an honest and good heart,” not being distracted by “the cares and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:15, 14). And, above all, she’s praying for us that when God lavishes upon us the great gifts of His love, His nourishment, and the delights of His grace, we will receive them with an open and soft heart, so that we too, like Saint Mary, may bear abundant fruit: the fruit of Christ in our lives.
The Rev. Herman (Majkrzak) is a member of the monastic brotherhood at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where he teaches liturgics and edits liturgical publications for the monastery press. He previously taught liturgical music at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York and Saint Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Alaska.
