NATIVITY: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE.

September 8, 2020
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: MI 5:1-4A; PS 13:6AB, 6C; Rom 8:28-30;MT 1:1-16, 18-23 OR 1:18-23. 

A Corsican proverb says, “People should be mourned at their birth, not at their death.” And a Jew proverb adds, “He that is of a merry heart has a continual feast.”

One question that I always put to myself is, why do we celebrate our birthdays? Why celebrate a special day and not others or every day?

Though I do not feel any attachment to birthday celebrations, I look with esteem those who hold special those moments. My philosophy is that everyday needs to be celebrated. For, every day reminds us of life and the very day that one started. Many people see in birthday celebrations a particular occasion of thanksgiving to God, to parents and friends for the gift of life and the events that surround that life. It is also an occasion, for loved ones, to show how much one counts for them and how loved he or she is. The birthday commemoration, can, in other sense, turn into a consecration of hypocrisy. For, even people who never greet each other or never wish well to others, on that very day, hypocritically, formulate the traditional, “Happy Birthday”. One then could ask, how happy do they want that day to be, knowing that the day before, they plotted all the evil and the day after they will still wish you evil?

Nevertheless, birthdays remind us of the love of God and his greatest gift to us, the gift of life. At the nativity, we celebrate life and love.

We are commemorating today, the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast, as says the introduction of the Roman Missal, “Commemorates the birth of her who was to be the Mother of the Savior because the Blessed Virgin Mary occupies a unique place in the salvation history. Our Lord reserved for her the highest mission ever entrusted to any creature.”

The Christian world, today, rejoices. For, God, in His project of salvation, has chosen, to elect one of us to be His Mother. On this day, that Mother of God to be is born. Mary was chosen in a very special way to be the handmaid of the Lord. To her, he entrusted an important mission in his divine plan about the sinful humanity, the mystery of salvation and redemption.

Today’s feast is in a straight connection with the Immaculate Conception. Mary is born in our sinful humanity, but preserved by God from the stains of sin, for the merits of what he intended her to be, His Mother.

The liturgy of the word, though not directly centered on Mary, gives us to see how God made use of her in His project. Thus, in the first reading, the prophet Micah discusses one of the key events in the history of the people of God, the coming of the son of David. As Christians, we could read through this prophecy the first coming of Christ and a certain opening to his second coming too. The first coming, the birth of our Lord, took place, as Micah prophesies, at Bethlehem, the smallest among the clans of Judah, in a complete rejection by his people. Micah also announced that his coming will bring about peace. That he will be born as a ruler of Israel, and that he will have a kingdom that will stand firm, and strong, and majestic. All these descriptions lead to think of the birth of Jesus as narrated in Luke 1:33, the annunciation of the Angel to Mary.

In the second reading, St. Paul speaks of predestination. The apostle affirms, “For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” God foreknew Mary. He formed a divine plan in which he included her for his purpose. For, adds the apostle Paul, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Mary’s love for God cannot be put to doubt. God himself called and elected her for his divine plan, the plan of salvation. He, therefore, made her “Mediatrix of all graces”.

The extract of the Gospel of Matthew leads us to a page of history, the genealogy of Jesus, and the annunciation to Joseph. We are told in substance about from where Jesus is and how he was born through Mary. Through the virgin betrothed to Joseph of the house of David, God inserted himself in human history and made of it the story of His love, the story of God.

May we say it clearly for those who never miss the opportunity to ask of the biblical ground of every Marian celebration. Today’s feast is not biblically based. Nowhere, nor the Old, neither in the New Testament will one find a mention of the Nativity of Mary. The Christians and Catholics tradition gives its origin in a tale or a non-canonical source, the Protoevangelium of James. This apocryphal writing mentions the “Evangelium de nativitate Mariae” (Gospel of the nativity of Mary). Nevertheless, Mary’s life was not a tale. It is well proved that she did exist, that means, like every one of us, she was also born of some parents known as Anne and Joachim, on a certain day. Therefore, even though the Bible does not mention it, that does not make of today’s commemoration a mere Catholics invention. Rather, it is the refusal of this truth which can be seen as a religious fantasy, a heresy, and a big insult to human reason. For, we cannot pretend to love Christ and deny everything that refers to His Mother.