The “Morning Star” Venus Just before Sunrise
Yesterday on the feast of the Annunciation we as a parish had the opportunity (because of the hard work of our choir director) to pray at home the akathist to the Theotokos. This work is the original form of hymnography called by that name. It literally means “non-sitting hymn,” as opposed to the kathismas, or Psalter readings, during which we are invited to sit. Saint Romanos the Melodist was its author, and many more akathists have been composed over the centuries. One of the most beautiful recent ones is the akathist Glory to God for All Things, the work of an Orthodox priest suffering in an Communist prison camp.
The akathist to the Theotokos that we prayed yesterday contains, within a dazzling series of poetic statements, one particularly striking declaration:
“Rejoice, star that causes the Sun to appear!”
It is a beautiful statement about the Incarnation.
In the early evening, the planet Venus often appears as the first star in the sky, heralding the coming of many others that will soon fill the sky. It is called the “evening star,” and is more luminescent and therefore beautiful than any other (hence its being named after Venus). So also the Virgin Mary is the greatest of the saints who “points the way” (the name of our principal icon of her) toward Christ.
In this she is like John the Baptist, the “forerunner” who was quoted by the Evangelist John as declaring: “I am sent before him” (John 3:28). Moreover, like the evening star, she diminishes the moment Christ comes into the world, the way Venus simply disappears from the morning sky at daybreak. In this way the Theotokos lives out John the Baptist’s statement about Christ: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
Virtually all of our hymnography about the Theotokos is shaped by the theme of the Incarnation, and it is good to celebrate the Annunciation during the Great Fast which is otherwise focused mainly on the Passion and Resurrection. The Virgin Mary serves the Incarnation the way the brightest of all stars relates to the sun: full of beauty, she fades with the appearance of Jesus Christ.