A Birthday Present for the Mother of God, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
September 8, 2022
Rom 8:28-30, Ps 13, Mt 1:18-23

To listen to an audio recording of this homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• As today we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of our Lady, we can ponder how great was the joy of this day not only for Saints Joachim and Anne but also for God. If we accept what the second-century gnostic Pseudogospel of James says, Joachim and Anne, as we ponder each July 26, were aged in years and begging God to remove the shame of sterility from their life, as Joachim went into the desert to fast and pray and Anne wept a double lamentation. When the Angel appeared in response to their prayers, when she conceived, when she gave birth, and when she began to nurse Mary, St. Anne was ebullient with joy. But I’m sure that was nothing compared to what it must have been like for the eternal Son of God to be looking at the birth of the little girl who about 14 years later would become his own mother and give birth to him in the Gospel scene we’ve just heard. We can look at the baby Mary with the joy-filled eyes and hearts of her parents as well as of her Son as she was an infant and began to grow, thoughts that even many with strong Marian devotions seldom contemplate. We can also think about how Jesus and Joseph celebrated Mary’s birthday each year, recognizing that they are with us now, together with all the angels and saints, as we fete here anew today.
• God the Father had had Mary in his sights since the beginning of time. St. Paul tells us that he has “chosen us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world to be holy and immaculate in his sight” (Eph 1:4), and how could he not be thinking of Mary as the icon of this divine election? We know that at the very instant of the fall, her advent was prophesied as the one in whom God would place an enmity for the serpent. Today, she who had been immaculately conceived was born full of grace.
• She was born according to a template. St. Paul tells us in today’s first reading that “those [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Mary was most certainly conformed to the image of the Holy One who would become the blessed Fruit of her womb and he, according to his humanity, would be conformed, mysteriously, to her earthly image. And this was a “shaping together” (literally con-formation) that would be manifested mutually throughout life, as her fiat would anticipate his, as her desire to help a young married couple would become his first miracle, as her pierced heart would emulate his heart pierced with a lance, as his glory would become reflected in her forever.
• It’s important for us whenever we celebrate a Marian feast to make explicit Mary’s Christocentric conformation, not just to avoid Protestant misinterpretations that we give Mary the homage that is only due to God, but also to help us deepen our own appreciation not only for our spiritual mother’s vocation and mission but for our own. Normally for us the celebration of a birthday is always an occasion to think with gratitude to God and to our parents for the gift of human life — and that is a very good thing to do! — but Mary’s birthday is a celebration of something more. As we see in today’s Gospel and know from throughout her life, she was born with a purpose, to be the Mother of God according to his humanity. This is alluded to in the other possible first reading for this feast, when the Prophet Micah says “You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.” The one to be born of Mary in Bethlehem would have an “origin from of old, from ancient times” and Mary was born to conform her life to that ancient one.
• As we think about her birth, her early days, her upbringing and her life, it’s natural for us to think of our own, and it’s key for us to grasp that we, too, have been born with a similar purpose, to be conformed to Jesus in this life and, God-willing, forever. Sometimes in our Marian piety we can focus so much on her inimitable privileges — like her Immaculate Conception, the virginal conception and birth of Jesus, her raising the Son of God, her sharing in his passion, and her sharing already in her body in his resurrection and heavenly life — that we can miss the emulable qualities of her life.
• Today the great birthday present she’d like for us to give her would be to allow her to help us conform ourselves, like she was, to the image of her Son, to conform ourselves to his Word and let ourselves develop in accordance with it as she did; to conform ourselves to his holiness as she did; to conform ourselves to his proclamation of the Gospel as she did; to conform ourselves to his salvific suffering as she did; and to conform ourselves as she did to the newness of life he has given us by his triumph over sin and death. The great way we conform ourselves to Mary so as to conform ourselves to her Son is through consecration, in which we entrust ourselves to her to mother us, to form us, to help us pattern our existence on the blessed Fruit of her womb. Today is a beautiful day on which to renew our Marian consecration or, if we have never formally entrusted ourselves to her, to do so. The prayer of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort that was recited by St. John Paul II each day and from which he took his motto is the one I use: Totus tuus ego sum et tota mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, O Maria! “I am all yours, O Mary, and all I have is yours. I receive you into everything I am and have. Give me your heart!” Mary in Fatima asked for us to be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart and to consecrate the world, especially Russia, to that heart that treasures God within, always says fiat to his will and seeks to conform her whole life to his word.
• The greatest way we conform ourselves to Mary through consecration — so that she can assist us to conform ourselves to her Son — is by entering with her into her Son’s consecration in the Mass. In the Mass we conceive within ourselves first the word of God so that just like Mary did, it may impregnate us and grow within us to such an extent that we are umbilically united with this word until it becomes so big within us that we have to give it to the light. Then the same Jesus whom she bore in her womb for nine months will enter into us so that he can help us to conform ourselves to himself from the inside. The purpose of Mary’s birth and life was not merely to be the Mother of God but to help facilitate our becoming like her through the conformation to her Son that is meant to happen in holy communion. Our Amen is meant to imitate her fiat at the annunciation. Let us ask her to pray for us today that we may respond to the graces for which she is interceding for us now with her Son so to conform ourselves to Him in this world that we may be conformed to Him, like Mary, forever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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