Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
This Sunday, on September 8th, the Church celebrates Mary’s birthday. Scripture tells us very little about the circumstances surrounding her birth, but still, we can glean a lot about who it is we are celebrating from what Scripture does reveal to us about Our Blessed Mother.
After her visit from the angel Gabriel, Mary travels “in haste” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Upon Mary’s entering her home, Elizabeth’s very first reaction to seeing her cousin is to proclaim—by “[crying] out in a loud voice” that Mary is “most blessed.” I grew up with a large extended Hispanic family, and our gatherings were always filled with lots of love, lots of joy, lots of food, and lots of noise. After I got married, I moved away, and my gatherings with family have become much rarer. But when I do come back for a visit, they always greet me with a boisterous and jubilant welcome! The thing is, they don’t greet me with a proclamation. They don’t announce how “blessed” they think I am; usually it’s simply, “So good to see you!” But today, Mary doesn’t get a “so good to see you” from her cousin—even though, clearly, Elizabeth is over the moon at the arrival of her relative. So what makes Elizabeth skip over the “usual” words of welcome that would be expected from anyone else in a similar situation?
Elizabeth [was] filled with the Holy Spirit… (Lk 1:41)
In that moment of greeting, it is the Holy Spirit, in whom Elizabeth “live[s] and move[s] and [has her] being” (Acts 17:28), who has spoken these beautiful words in and through her. It is not that Elizabeth has pointed out something to Mary that Mary herself didn’t already know. It is that the Holy Spirit had pointed out to Elizabeth a revelation that she is now understanding for the first time. And so her response to this divine insight is nothing but pure joy.
Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled. (Lk 1:45)
Next, Elizabeth continues in her proclamation of divine revelation by explaining just why Mary has been favored by God to carry the Savior in her womb. Of course, the teaching on Mary’s Immaculate Conception would be revealed and understood by the Church over time—a long time. But for now, it is enough to understand that Mary is favored because she “believed.” Specifically, she believed “that what was spoken to [her] by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
Now what part of “what was spoken by the Lord” is Elizabeth referring to precisely? Did she mean the words of God in general, as revealed in Scripture—that is to say, that a Messiah would one day come to save Israel? After all, it is true, Mary believed, despite her nation’s four hundred years of exile, when plenty of others surely must have lost hope in the promise. That certainly could explain part of what Elizabeth meant.
Mary herself ends her response to Elizabeth’s greeting with the words, “He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.” So certainly, the thought of the fulfillment of the Scriptures in general must have crossed her mind. And indeed, that alone would have been enough to count Mary as “blessed.”
And yet, Elizabeth doesn’t say, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to Abraham by the Lord would be fulfilled.” She says rather, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” What exactly did the Lord speak to Mary? While we can’t possibly know everything the Lord spoke to Mary’s pure and sinless heart, Scripture does reveal just one message that the Lord has sent His angel to say to her:
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. (Lk 1:31)
Now why is it so important to Elizabeth to proclaim that Mary had believed what was said to her by the Lord via the angel? Because it was the very way in which Elizabeth’s husband, and by association, Elizabeth herself, had failed to believe:
Then Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this?…And the angel said to him in reply, “I am Gabriel, who stand before God…[But] you did not believe my words…” (Lk 1:18-20)
The stark contrast between Mary’s trust and steadfast belief and Elizabeth’s previous distrust and disbelief is so evident to her that it causes Elizabeth to “cry out” in humility:
And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Lk 1:43)
Mary answers Elizabeth’s question and explains the reason. It is because of Elizabeth’s humility, a humility that was stirred up precisely because of her prior weaknesses and failures, and not despite them, that Mary comes to her now:
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation…and has lifted up the lowly. (Lk 1:50-52)
And so today we learn two lessons from Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. Friends, when we compare ourselves to Mary, the stark contrast between the state of her soul and the state of ours is like day and night. We could never, ever measure up to her, no matter how heroic our efforts, simply by virtue of the fact that we were not immaculately conceived. We will always have a tendency toward sin and weakness in this life. But mercifully, perfect sinlessness and purity is not the only way to humility, as it was for Mary.
Mary teaches us today that humility can also be attained by the awareness of our falls, our sincere contrition, and our determination to try again and trust in God’s mercy. God will come to us too, as He did to Mary, as long as we ever seek the lowest place of humility.
But there is a second lesson we learn today. Once we have sought the lowest place through our sincere contrition and determination to trust, Mary will come to the aid of our weakness, along with her spouse, the Holy Spirit—in haste—and she will stay for as long as we need. For most of us, this far longer than the three months she stayed with Elizabeth. We need Mary to stay with us our whole lives!
So today, let us ask Mary to come in haste and to stay with us by offering her a gift on her birthday, the gift of a heartfelt Rosary or even just one Hail Mary. Whatever we have to give her is enough—as long as it is offered with all the love we have in our hearts. In return, Mary will “lend” us her heart and fill in the gap between the love we are capable of and the love that is the Lord’s due.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name. (Lk 1:48-49)
Murillo, B. E. (1661). The Birth of the Virgin [painting]. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
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