Besides the birth of Jesus, the Catholic Church celebrates only two other births: John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. This is because their births play in integral part in the life of Jesus and in our salvation.
The Blessed Mother’s birth is celebrated on September 8, unless it falls on Sunday.
The Nativity of Mary has been celebrated by the Church for even longer than the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which was fixed on the calendar 9 months prior to her birth.
The details of Mary’s birth are based on the tradition and writing from the very first centuries of the Church.
Mary was chosen long before her birth. Early in the Bible, right after Adam and Eve’s sin, God promises that that the seed or offspring of the woman will fight against the offspring of the serpent. Mary is this woman.
Mary was born to be the Mother of the Savior. Her birth is an appropriate prelude to the birth of Jesus and marks a unique point in salvation history.
We celebrate the birth of our mother:
Without Mary, there is no Jesus:
In fact, even though it is not possible to establish an exact chronological point for identifying the date of Mary’s birth, the Church has constantly been aware that Mary appeared on the horizon of salvation history before Christ. It is a fact that when “the fullness of time” was definitively drawing near-the saving advent of Emmanuel- she who was from eternity destined to be his Mother already existed on earth. The fact that she “preceded” the coming of Christ is reflected every year in the liturgy of Advent. Therefore, if to that ancient historical expectation of the Savior we compare these years which are bringing us closer to the end of the second Millennium after Christ and to the beginning of the third, it becomes fully comprehensible that in this present period we wish to turn in a special way to her, the one who in the “night” of the Advent expectation began to shine like a true “Morning Star” (Stella Matutina). For just as this star, together with the “dawn,” precedes the rising of the sun, so Mary from the time of her Immaculate Conception preceded the coming of the Savior, the rising of the “Sun of Justice” in the history of the human race.
Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, March 5, 1987
Catholics celebrate Mary, who watches over us:
Mary is instrumental in God’s plan for salvation:
We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that He might be the First-Born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified.
Romans 8: 28-30
The dawn of a new era of salvation and redemption begins:
The “splendor of an entirely unique holiness” by which Mary is “enriched from the first instant of her conception” comes wholly from Christ: she is “redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son.” The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and chose her “in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 492
Celebrating the birth of Mary where she was born:
Mary’s parents were St. Joachim and St. Anne:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
To follow Christ we must be one:
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