Word to the Wise
Thursday, September 8, 2011 - Sept. 8 - The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
[Micah 5:1-4a or Rom 8:28-30 and Matt 1:1-16, 18-23 or 1:18-23,1259]We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. [Romans]
From 1994 to 1998, I was pastor of St. Ann Parish in San Antonio, TX. There were two things there that had an impact on my thinking about the Virgin Mary. The first feature involved the stain glass windows. They were basically a story about the childhood of Mary, including her birth! The second was a statue in front of the rectory, showing St. Ann with her daughter, Mary as a young girl. Like many Catholics, my images of Mary were of a young-ish adult woman, based on most of the statues I had seen of her over the years. I had never thought of her as a little girl or a teen! The celebration of her nativity is a reminder that she wasn't born as an adult! Catholic piety has a way of robbing her of her childhood.
Furthermore, it is worth remembering that what we celebrate today is not a "birthday" in our usual cultural sense of the word (nice as those events can be), it is her birth that we celebrate. She is fully human and, in the words of Pope Paul VI's MARIALIS CULTUS, "truly our sister." She is very much an exemplar of St. Paul's words quoted above. Whether we imagine her as Our Lady of________________ or as a little girl or the young woman who receives a surprise visit from a heavenly messenger, she remains the Mother of Christ, and not only "truly our sister," but the Mother of us all. AMEN