Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

SALVE, sancta Parens, eníxa puérpera Regem, qui caelum terrámque regit in saecula saeculórum.

Hail, holy Mother, thou who didst bring forth the King, who ruleth heaven and earth for ever and ever.

Today is the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Commonly referred to as her Birthday! As we celebrate everyone's birthday so joyfully, so too today we especially celebrate the "Vessel of honour... House of Gold... Cause of our joy"! We preserve the Christian practice of venerating the one who gave birth to our Saviour in the Catholic Faith, as does all of Orthodox Christendom. We place special honour to Mary above all the other Saints because she is the first fruits of all redemption; God deigned to preserve her from the slightest sin in order that she bore forth Christ from an unstained tabernacle. She attained the dignity of a mother, whilst losing not her virginal purity. That is not to say marriage is an imperfect and unholy institution; but that God in his infinite goodness blessed her with riches beyond measure, and showed through her a most extraordinary manifestation of his greatness in the incarnation of His Son; a simple babe.

Our Lady says herself in her great hymn of joy, the Magnificat: "For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations, unto them that fear Him". Today is a chance to praise God for the unique birth of an almost heavenly woman. The Blessed Virgin was first and foremost the vehicle by which God made manifest His Wisdom in the world, as we are reminded in today's Epistle (Proverbs 8:22-35):

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived... When He prepared the heavens, I was there.

Before Our Lady was even born, or conceived, she was a plan and thought in Our Heavenly Father's mind: a pre-ordained gift through which our salvation would come. The Incarnation of the Word of God made flesh, Our Lord Jesus Christ, was always meant to be given to the world in this way. Therefore the Angels themselves were presented before all time with a vision of the Salvation of Humanity in the image and person of the Blessed Virgin (Revelation 12): "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." A third of those angels rejected this model of humble sanctification, just as men do today; they became the demons, the greatest fall from grace that has ever been.

The feast today originated in the Christian East, and found its way into the Roman calender about the 7th century. We also celebrate the day of her conception, the Immaculate Conception, fixed, due to this feast, as December 8th. They are closely connected and we can see, when combined with Christmas, a dual manifestation of God's revealed saving action in the New Covenant: the lowly birth of a girl who is exulted through the working of the Holy Spirit; and the divine epiphany of the Saviour's Birth and all its implications. Whilst Our Lord's conception, birth and infancy are filled with portents of divine revelation; Our Lady was one of obscurity and hidden grace. Perhaps it is that beauty which shines through in the dignity of every Christian soul.

We beseech Thee, O Lord, grant to Thy servants the gift of Thy heavenly grace; that as the child-bearing of the Blessed Virgin was the beginning of salvation, so the joyful festival of her Nativity may bring us an increase of peace. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.