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Scripture: Sept.8: Birth of the Virgin Mary Lectionary # 636 Micah 5:1-4. Romans 8:29-30. Psalm 13:6.6. Matthew 1:1-16,18-23. Or Matthew 1:18-23:

“Today we celibrate the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose splendid life has illumined the Church.”Both the Liturgy of the Hours (The Divine Office or Breviary) and the Eucharist Liturgical texts honor Mary by first calling attention to her union with her Son Jesus. The earliest texts that speak of his birth and genealogy are proclaimed and Mary is present within these texts as his mother. Her birth is later recalled in the best of the apocryphal works about her the “Proto-Gospel of James or the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is the earliest narrative about her birth in a written and ancient tradition outside of the canonical scriptures.

The mentioning of Jesus in these texts is a sign of our being balanced and on sound grounds in our marian theology which must always start with the Scriptures which do present Mary as a datum or reality of iven of our faith as Christians. Catholics and Orthodox believers lunderstand this principle and share it with the faithful in the liturgy and in devotions that are tried and true to the biblical image of Mary, for example, as we find in the mysteries of the Rosary or in the devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows, a feast soon to be celebrated in this month of September.

The reason for making sure Mary is always united to her Son is to give the honor and worship due to him as the Son of God and as the one mediator between God and ourselves. Mary shares in his mysteries by way of her own discipleship and her status that is so unique as the mother of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ the Lord.

The Gospel text is taken from Matthew’s first chapter that contains the traditional genealogy of Jesus taken from what we know in bits and pieces from the genealogies in the Old Testament. Matthew bases the Davidic claim to Jesus the Messiah through the genealogical lineage elaborated in his first sixteen lines that end with the mention of Mary “of whom Jesus was born.” The shorter version brings in the role of Joseph as the foster father of the Lord and the only man to have had a virginal spousal relationship with Mary. The birth of Jesus was through the power of God, the Holy Spirit’s overshadowing this young Jewish woman. The citation from Isaiah 7:14 is one of the earliest texts used in reflections about Mary’s virginity in the Patristic literature and it is one of three texts mentioned in Lumen Gentium or the Vatican II chapter on Mary at the conclusion of the Constitution on the Church.

Mary’s entire life and raison d’etre was to be united with her Son in his mysteries. She is the very first human to have known him and had the miracle of conceiving him through the Holy Spirit. This was not a sexual union but a supernatural miracle of her giving conception and birth to the Son of God as both Luke and Matthew attest in their Infancy Narratives.

We celebrate her birth and her entrance into our lives as our spiritual Mother since we are reborn in Christ her only Son and our Savior. All of her titles given to her in the long tradition after the Scriptures is based on her Divine Maternity as Theotokos or God-bearer. We do well to always recall this and associate her always with her Son. Remarkably, this simple Jewish woman enjoys a great role in being the mother of the Messiah and the woman who restores us to our dignity as human persons whose ancestors of the human race are described in Genesis chapters 1-3. She is totally one with us being born of a human mother and father whom the ancient writing called the Prot-Gospel of James names as Joachim and Anna. We may add that a poet who is not Catholic names her “our nature’s solitary boast.” (William Wadsworth).

On this her birthday, we thank God for her being a part of our faith life. We know from the earliest mention of her by St. Paul in Galatians 4:4-5 that she gave birth as a Jewish woman to Jesus in the “fullness of time.” She lived out her life under the inspiration of the Torah and taught Jesus his earliest lessons in life. So it is life that we celebrate in anyone’s birthday and life depends on both the human parents and the Divine Persons.

Mary shows us how to respond to the challenge of life—especially the big ones (cf. Luke 1:26-38) and how to pray and praise God (Luke: 1:46-56; 2:19,51), and how to learn from her and her Son Jesus how to say “YES” to God (cf. II Corinthians 1:19-21).

We can put imaginary candles on the birthday cake by taking some time to light up anyone of the texts that serve as lit candles on this feast of Mary’s birthday. Sister Dolores Dufner, O.S.B. gives us a full praise of Mary in her poetic rendition in words called the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos to the tune of Sing of Mary. Here is one of the stanzas that seizes the moment of the birth of Mary, a real “Carpe Diem”:

Mary, first among disciples, listening, learning from your Son,

You held dear his words and actions, pond’ring each forgetting none.

Mother now of all disiciples, help us listen day by day;

Open to the Spirit’s prompting, help us follow Jesus’ way. Amen.

441doc. Scripture for Sept 9^th. Lectionary 441

Scripture: I Timothy 1:1-2,12-14. Psalm 16:P1-2,5.7-8.11 Luke 6:39-42

Sometimes it is good to reflect on the Psalm and its Response. Psalm 16 is a meditative psalm that has beautiful thoughts that help us appreciate the way Jesus teaches us. We read in verse eleven: “You will show me the path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights of your right hand forever. “ The opening words of Luke tell us that Jesus teaches us through images or pictures for our imagination to reflect upon. This fits in with the thoughts given to us in Psalm 16 especially in the verse cited above.

The path of life is the way of our discipleship and the way of righteousness and wholesome holiness. The Jewish interpretation of the Psalm is very worthwhile and profound: “It is also the path in which “days are long”, that is, life is extended and a premature death avoided…Worldly pleasures never completely satisfy as does the joy of the spirit derived from communion with God.” (Psalms, Soncino, p.39).

In our meditation we should use our imagination and recreate the pictures Jesus offers us. By our listening and learning from the examples and images we hear in Luke and the other Gospels we too enjoy the path of life that gives us satisfying joy in our journey with the Lord toward the kingdom of God. We are not stumbling in the darkness but have the paths of life offered by the Light of the world, Jesus. We become eager learners, that is, disciples of the Master Jesus. And above all, we do not hinder others on the path of life by pointing out their failures when we know deep down we have our own to contend with on the way. Amen.