Feast
of the Birth of Mary
September 8, 2014 6:30am
In our Catholic liturgy and calendar,
we do not celebrate many birthdays.
Obviously, we celebrate Jesus’
birthday on December 25th.
We also celebrate John the
Baptist’s birthday on June 24th, and Mary’s birthday today.
I cannot think of any others.
For most of the saints, we
celebrate the day of their death.
Why is this?
Our Catholic tradition does it
this way because our death marks the end of our earthly journey.
It marks the conclusion of our
efforts here on earth to grow in the image and likeness of God and to follow as
fully as possible the way of Jesus.
Our death also is our birth or
birthday into a new kind of life – resurrected life with the Lord Jesus.
And so, practically all of our
saints’ feast days are the days of their death.
But the feast of the birth of
Mary that we celebrate today is an exception.
Why?
In a way, the answer is easy.
On the one hand, Mary’s life was
a human journey and she had to deal with challenges and sorrows and sufferings
like the rest of the saints and the rest of us.
But, Mary was fully one with God
and fully open to God’s will right from the very beginning.
Mary reflected God’s image and
likeness and embraced Jesus’ way fully right from the start.
This is why we celebrate her
physical birth on earth.
And as we do this, Mary beckons
us not to waste time.
She moves us to respond more and
more fully each day to the calling of her Son in the gospels.
That will prepare us for our
birth into resurrected life at the end of our earthly journey.
That, I suggest, is the message
of our celebration of Mary’s birth today.
