The Nativity of Our Lady

This week we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is celebrated each year on the eighth of September. Usually it is the custom of the church to celebrate the feast day of a saint on the date of their death as this is truly their "die natalis", the day remembered as their birth into everlasting happiness. Mary, however, entered this world sinless through the privilege of the Immaculate Conception and is the firstborn of the redeemed. Her nativity is a cause for great joy as it is considered the" dawn of our salvation" as Pope Paul VI wrote in the document, Marialis Cultus in 1972.

Our Lady’s birthday marks a new era. Under the Old Covenant mankind endured a long wait for the coming of the Messiah. But at a certain blessed moment, the Divine Providence decreed that Mary should be born. Her nativity represents the entrance into the world of the perfect creature who found grace before God and had merit sufficient to bring that agonising wait to an end.

All the prayers, sufferings, and faithfulness of the just, living and dead, were at last rewarded with her arrival. There had been Patriarchs, Prophets, just men and women among the Chosen People and certainly some just men and women among the Gentiles who had prayed, suffered, and waited; none of this was sufficient to bring the coming of the Redemption. But at the appointed time, God made the perfect creature, born to be the Mother of the Saviour. Therefore, the entrance of this exquisite woman into the world is a foreshadowing of the Redemption. The gates of Heaven that had been tightly locked began to open, and the light of a new dawn, a breeze of hope, passed through.

Mary’s birth marks the arrival of a new grace, a new blessing, a new presence which would lead soon after to the presence, blessing and grace of her Most Holy Son, our Saviour. For all these reasons the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady should be most dear to us. It announces the fall of Paganism.

Since we are children of Our Lady not by our own merit but by her choice, let us ask of her a special grace. Many mystics who had visions of Our Lady said that on her feast days she visits Purgatory to release a great number of souls whom she takes back with her to Heaven. What happens with the Church Suffering gives us an idea of what takes place with the Church Militant. On her feast days her grace envelops us and gains incalculable favours for us.

As we celebrate the birth of our Most Holy Mother, perhaps it is not too early to begin to prepare ourselves for the nativity of her Son. We do not need to wait for the formal beginning of Advent to embark on the making ready of the stables of our hearts so that on Christmas night, when Joseph comes asking whether we have any room for Mary and her beloved child, we may joyfully answer, “Yes, you are most welcome. I have been expecting you and everything is ready for your stay!”