‘Paradise of the Incarnation’: Our Lady’s Birthday
Today, Sept. 8, the Catholic Church celebrates the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the “Theotokos” or Mother of God.
Birthdays are always a cause of celebration, but Mary’s was important not just to her holy parents—who had long prayed for a child—but to all mankind, because God would become flesh in her womb and be born of Mary. Because she was to be mother of the God-man Jesus, it is fitting that she should have been as perfectly pure as a human could be, and so the Church teaches that, by a special grace, Mary was conceived without Original Sin.
And just as Jesus chose to come to earth to redeem mankind through Mary 2000 years ago, just so now Mary is eager to help us come to her Son.
The Holy Theotokos was born of the elderly parents, Joachim of the lineage of David, and Anna of the lineage of Aaron. Therefore, Mary was of royal birth by her father, and of priestly birth by her mother, foreshadowing Him who would be born of her as King and High Priest. Because her parents were very old and had no children, they were ashamed before men and humble before God. In their humility they prayed to God to bring them joy in their old age by giving them a child.
[] Mary was born in Nazareth and at the age of three was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem. In her young womanhood she returned to Nazareth and shortly thereafter heard the Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel concerning the birth of the Son of God from her most pure virgin body. From her, the Son of God was born in the flesh that he might free people from the ancient slavery of sin.
Ven. Fulton Sheen wrote, “If you could have preexisted your mother, would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived – one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise?”
Sheen praised Mary, “As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of the Incarnation, and in her as a Garden were celebrated the first nuptials of God and man.”
Have a blessed feast day!