THE BIRTH OF MOTHER OF GRACE

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, FEAST

Micah 5:1-4; Ps 13:6-7; Mt 1:1-16,18-23

She who is to give Birth

As we celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we turn again to the origin of the mysteries of our salvation. From Genesis, we see that God promised man and woman salvation immediately after their fall from grace. To us, it is a promise, but to God, it is a reality created by the word of God immediately. The word of the promise created enmity between the parties: the woman and her offspring on one hand, and the serpent or the devil and his offspring on the other hand. The coming of the woman and her offspring awaited the human response to God’s word and gift of salvation. It took many years to prepare humanity to long for life, to receive the word of God, and learn how to deny self and the delusions of the devil and live by the word of God in faith. These were the things God accomplished through his word and promises throughout the history of salvation. Through Abraham, he constituted a people who would rehabilitate his word and accentuate the human response to God. Our human nature became the best it can be in the conception and birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the product of grace and human response to the word of God in faith. Hence, she is called the daughter of Sion.

The prophecy of Micah concerning the salvation of Israel and the whole peoples and nations affirms the ancient fulfilment of our God’s promise, which is only realised in material form in our time. “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, the least of the clans of Judah, out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel; his origin goes back to the distant past, to the days of old.” Concerning the woman who is to help bring the salvation of mankind to materialise, he added: “The Lord is therefore going to abandon them till the time when she who is to give birth gives birth. Then the remnant of his brothers will come back to the sons of Israel.” The gentile nations were left or abandoned for a while, to let Israel produce the exquisite fruit of grace and human faith in Yahweh. In the Blessed Virgin Mary, a new human nature was fashioned in grace, with an extra quality of hatred of evil and sin. The hatred for evil and love of good define the true Israel and the remnant who would be brothers of the Son of Man, harvested from the nations and peoples through the mystical birth of she who is to give birth. In addition to her birth of the Ancient of Days, she will also give birth to those called his brothers from the nations and peoples. She will give birth to them through the teachings of her Son and her maternal solicitude. “He will stand and feed his flock with the power of the Lord, with the majesty of the name of his God. They will live secure, for from then on, he will extend his power to the ends of the land.”

Subsequently, the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the dawn of graced humanity. She, who is full of grace, opened the spiritual gate closed by Eve to her children, due to disobedience to God’s word. She and all her children have direct access to God because every access evil has to their spirits is closed by the grace of God, who created the perpetual enmity between her and the serpent. “Then among the many peoples, the remnant of Jacob will be like a dew from the Lord, like raindrops on the grass, putting no hope in men, expecting nothing from mankind.” The Blessed Virgin herself did not put any hope in man, nor did she expect anything from mankind, for she conceived her son by the power of the Holy Spirit. “This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came to live together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” The long genealogy that started the story of the nativity shows us the triumph of faith and grace over human weakness and the evil of sin. What human nature contributed to the coming of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her Son was faithfulness in the word of God. Man’s faith in God objectively started with Abraham through David, to Joseph, the husband of Mary, the faithful steward and guardian of God’s household. Through the woman and her Son, our spirits are alive again, for God has returned to his temple within us. “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us.’

Let us pray: Impart to your servants, we pray, O Lord, the gift of heavenly grace, that the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin may bring deeper peace to those for whom the birth of her Son was the dawning of salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.