The feast of the nativity of the Virgin Mary, which falls on the 8th of September, is a splendid moment wherein we as Christians ponder, with the saints and the Popes, the deeper meaning of this commemoration.
Let us start with St John Damascene (born c. 675, Damascus—died December 4, 749, near Jerusalem). According to this saint, Mary’s nativity is a day of universal joy. He gives us the reason in the following words: The day of the Nativity of the Mother of God is a day of universal joy because through the Mother of God, the entire human race was renewed, and the sorrow of the first mother, Eve, was transformed into joy.
In St Alphonsus Liguori (27 September 1696 – 1 August 1787)’s understanding, Mary’s nativity is important because from that time she began with all her powers to love her God. He writes: As soon as she [Mary] had the use of reason, that is, from the first moment of her immaculate conception in the womb of St. Ann, from that time she began with all her powers to love her God; and thus she continued to do, ever-advancing more in perfection and love through her whole life. All her thoughts, her desires, her affections, were wholly given to God; not a word, not a motion, not a glance of the eye, not a breath of hers that was not for God and for his glory, never departing one step, nor separating herself for one moment from the divine love.
Then, the same saint also states that Mary’s nativity is important because her love for God supersedes that of all angels and saints taken together. He brings the subsequent argument: Think of what the Saints have done for their neighbor because they loved God. But what Saint’s love for God can match Mary’s? She loved Him more in the first moment of her existence than all the Saints and angels ever loved Him or will love Him. Our Lady herself revealed to Sister Mary Crucified that the fire of her love was most extreme. If Heaven and earth were placed in it, they would be instantly consumed. And the ardors of the seraphim, compared with it, are like cool breezes. Just as there is not one among all the Blessed who loves God as Mary does, so there is no one, after God, who loves us as much as this most loving Mother does. Furthermore, if we heaped together all the love that mothers have for their children, all the love of husbands and wives, all the love of all the angels and Saints for their clients, it could never equal Mary’s love for even a single soul.
For the late Pope Benedict XVI (April 16, 1927-December 31, 2022), Mary’s nativity marks the beginning of Mary’s faithful perseverance in doing the will of God. He tells us: Her [Mary’s] example of faithful perseverance in doing the will of God and her heavenly reward are a source of courage and hope for all of us. In another reflection the same Pope highlights the same point when he says: Mary is a woman who loves. We see it in the delicacy with which she recognizes the need of the spouses at Cana and makes it known to Jesus. We see it in the humility with which she recedes into the background during Jesus’s public life, knowing that the Son must establish a new family and that the Mother’s hour will come only with the cross, which will be Jesus’ true hour. When the disciples flee, Mary will remain beneath the cross; later, at the hour of Pentecost, it will be they who gather around her as they wait for the Holy Spirit.
From the pen of the same Pope, Mary’s nativity marks the first step of her constant decision to take the ‘way’ to enter the Kingdom of God that Christ opened. He said: Mary was the first person to take the ‘way’ to enter the Kingdom of God that Christ opened, a way which is accessible to the humble, to all who trust in the word of God and endeavor to put it into practice.
Finally, for the present Pope Francis (born, December 17, 1936), Mary’s nativity reminds us of the importance of listen[ing] to the voice of the voiceless. In his message given on 8 September 2021, to the participants in the 25th International Mariological Marian Congress (8-11 September 2021), he said: Mary, in the beauty of following the Gospel and in her service to the common good of humanity and the planet, always teaches us to listen to these voices, and she herself becomes the voice of the voiceless in order “to give birth to a new world, where all of us are brothers and sisters, where there is room for all those whom our societies discard” (Encyclical Letter, Fratelli tutti, 278).
In this sense Mary’s nativity helps us appreciate Mary’s role within divine grace that of being a woman, disciple, mother and friend. Pope Francis wrote: Thus, the figure of Mary becomes a point of reference for a culture capable of overcoming the barriers that can create division. Therefore, on the path of this culture of fraternity, the Spirit calls us to welcome once again the sign of consolation and sure hope that has the name, the face and the heart of Mary: woman, disciple, mother and friend. It is along this path that the Spirit continues to tell us that “the times we are living in are the times of Mary” (Address to the Pontifical Pontifical Theological Faculty “Marianum”, 24 October 2020).
Let us pray with St Anselm this special prayer in honour of Mary’s nativity to Mary, the Mother of God and Our Heavenly Mother:
Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O sacred Virgin; give me strength against thine enemies, and against the enemy of the whole human race. Give me strength humbly to pray to thee. Give me strength to praise thee in prayer with all my powers, through the merits of thy most sacred nativity, which for the entire Christian world was a birth of joy, the hope and solace of its life.
When thou wast born, O most holy Virgin, then was the world made light.
Happy is thy stock, holy thy root, and blessed thy fruit, for thou alone as a virgin, filled with the Holy Spirit, didst merit to conceive thy God, as a virgin to bear Thy God, as a virgin to bring Him forth, and after His birth to remain a virgin.
Have mercy therefore upon me a sinner, and give me aid, O Lady, so that just as thy nativity, glorious from the seed of Abraham, sprung from the tribe of Juda, illustrious from the stock of David, didst announce joy to the entire world, so may it fill me with true joy and cleanse me from every sin.
Pray for me, O Virgin most prudent, that the gladsome joys of thy most helpful nativity may put a cloak over all my sins.
O holy Mother of God, flowering as the lily, pray to thy sweet Son for me, a wretched sinner. Amen.