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.
She was chosen to be the mother of Jesus long before her birth. Early in the Bible, right after Adam and Eve’s sin, God promises that that the offspring of the woman will fight against the offspring of the serpent. This woman is Mary.
The details of Mary’s birth are based on the tradition and writing from the very first centuries of the Church.
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 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 Church celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8, unless that date falls on Sunday.
The dawn of salvation:
We celebrate the birth of our mother:
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
Without Mary, there is no Jesus:
A joyful prelude to introduce the great gift of salvation:
Mary is instrumental in God’s plan for salvation:
Throughout the Old Covenant the mission of many holy women prepared for that of Mary. At the very beginning there was Eve; despite her disobedience, she receives the promise of a posterity that will be victorious over the evil one, as well as the promise that she will be the mother of all the living. By virtue of this promise, Sarah conceives a son in spite of her old age. Against all human expectation God chooses those who were considered powerless and weak to show forth his faithfulness to his promises: Hannah, the mother of Samuel; Deborah; Ruth; Judith and Esther; and many other women. Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from Him. After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion, and the new plan of salvation is established.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 489
The birth of the one who is Full of Grace:
This Marian feast is an invitation to joy, precisely because with the birth of Mary Most Holy, God gave the world almost the concrete guarantee that salvation was now imminent: humanity that for millennia, in more or less conscious ways, had been waiting for something. or someone who could free her from pain, from evil, from anguish, from despair, and who in the Chosen People had found, especially in the Prophets, the spokespersons of the Word of God, reassuring and consoling, could finally look, moved and anxious, to Mary “Child”, who was the point of convergence and arrival of a complex of divine promises, mysteriously echoed in the very heart of history. It is precisely this Child, still small and fragile, the “Woman” of the first announcement of the future Redemption, opposed by God to the tempting serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring: He will crush your head and you will strike at his heel!” It is precisely this Child, the “Virgin”, who “will conceive and give birth to a Son, who will be called Emmanuel, which means: God with us”. This Child is precisely the “Mother” who will give birth in Bethlehem to “the one who must be the ruler of Israel”
Pope John Paul II, Homily, 8 September 1980
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
Doing small things with the great love:
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