What
is the Birthday of Mary?
The Church has celebrated Mary's birth since at
least the sixth century. A September birth was chosen because the Eastern Church
begins its Church year with September. The September 8 date helped determine the
date for the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, nine months
earlier.
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Prayer for Our Lady's
Birthday
Blessed Virgin Mary, at your birth the
patriarchs and prophets rejoiced, for you announced the coming of our
salvation. We celebrate your birth and ask your help in our daily lives.
In a world filled with violence, fear, and anxiety, help us to be examples
of living in gospel joy. Amen. |
Comment
We can see every human
birth as a call for new hope in the world. The love of two human beings has
joined with God in his creative work. The loving parents have shown hope in a
world filled with travail. The new child has the potential to be a channel of
God's love and peace to the world. This is all true in a magnificent way in
Mary. If Jesus is the perfect expression of God's love, Mary is the
foreshadowing of that love. If Jesus has brought the fullness of salvation, Mary
is its dawning.
Birthday celebrations
bring happiness to the celebrant as well as to family and friends. Next to the
birth of Jesus, Mary's birth offers the greatest possible happiness to the
world. Each time we celebrate her birth we can confidently hope for an increase
of peace in our hearts and in the world at large.
~From Saint of the Day,
Lives, Lessons and Feast, By Leonard Foley, O.F.M.; revised by Pat McCloskey,
O.F.M
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