Feast of the nativity of Our Lady (September 8)
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 1, 18-23)
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother
Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found
to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man
and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in
her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name
him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had
been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear
a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
This is the
word of the Lord.
Together
with the Catholic Church spread throughout the world, the Orthodox Church and
many Churches who belong to the Anglican tradition, we celebrate today the
feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, Mother of God.
Originally
this feast celebrated the consecration of the Basilica which was built during the
fifth century in Jerusalem on the place where, it was believed, stood the home
of Mary's parents and where Mary herself was born. The basilica is now
dedicated to St. Anne.
This feast
originated in the East and was brought to Rome and the West during the seventh
century. It is celebrated on September 8, exactly nine months after the feast
of the Immaculate Conception, on December 8. We cannot but note the parallelism
that exists between these two feasts and the two feasts of the Annunciation,
when Mary accepted to be the mother of the Son of God, celebrated on March 25,
and that of the Nativity of Jesus, the Christ, on December 25.
If we
consider carefully Our Lady's feast days approved by the Catholic Church,
indeed every true devotion to her, we will see that they all point to her Son,
true man and true God. Today's feast points to the Incarnation of the Christ.
Does the
Bible mention Mary's birth? No! That is why during the celebration of the Mass
the liturgy suggests a reading taken from Matthew chapter 1 in which the
genealogy of Jesus Christ is presented. This reading does not speak about
Mary's birth but about that of her child, Jesus. This feast is focused on
Jesus, for Jesus and he alone is our saviour. Mary is his mother. When we
celebrate her we honour him, and he rejoices that we accept the precious gift
he gave us from his cross when he gave us his mother as our mother.
So let us
rejoice on this her feast day because she was born; this is reason enough for
our joy.
When we look
at the genealogy as presented by Matthew in today's liturgy, we note that he
started from Abraham going down a list of names up to that of Jacob,
"father of Joseph, husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who was called
the Christ". Not all the persons mentioned in this list were saints: some
were sinners, perhaps even rascals. This comes to tell us that in his family
tree there were all sorts of persons, just like in our family tree. Jesus was
like us in everything except in sin.
This list of
names can be monotonous reading for it tells us of who was father to whom,
until the series is broken when it comes to Joseph the husband of Mary. Matthew
does not tell us the name of Mary's parents. He tells us that she was the
mother of Jesus who was called the Christ. I cannot help imagining this list of
names as an arrow at whose tip is Mary pointing to her son. This list of
sinners and saints ends with the name of the young lady who was full of grace
and who at the Annunciation was filled with the very author of every grace: the
Emmanuel, God with us.
Having
presented us with the roots of Christ's family all pointing to and leading to
its best fruits, Mary and Jesus, Mathew writes about the nativity, the birth of
Jesus. It is interesting that when we celebrate the nativity of Mary, her
birth, we read Matthew's version of Christ's birth in which he does not mention
any angels singing the good news of the birth of the long-awaited Messiah. He
does not mention any shepherds watching over their flocks by night. Matthew
mentions the problem Joseph was facing when he came to know that his beloved
was with child, and that this child was not his. Christ's nativity in Matthew's
story is all about Joseph accepting the message he received from an angel in a
dream that Mary's pregnancy was the work of the Holy Spirit. It tells us also
how Joseph accepted Mary's baby as his own, becoming a father to him, and
giving him the name 'Jesus'. This story is about the Annunciation of Joseph and
his 'yes' readily given to God's plan.
Both
Annunciations tell us that the birth of Jesus and Mary's motherhood are the
work of the Holy Spirit. We can come to the conclusion that Mary's birth too
was the work of the Holy Spirit who prepared for the incarnation of the
Only-begotten Son of God through the Nativity of the Holy Virgin Mary.
In
conclusion, let us not be shy to celebrate Mary's Nativity, and to honour our
heavenly Mother as much as we can, for she does not compete with her Son since
she is full of grace. And neither Joseph competes with him, for it was in his
and Mary's company that Jesus "advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with
God and man" (Lk 2, 52).
Let us join
Isaiah (16, 10) in today's responsorial Psalm and say: "With delight I
rejoice in the Lord”. Today we rejoice because of Mary's birth.
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