Light from the Altar - Our Lady's Birthday, 8 September

We all remember the story in Genesis of Noah and the dove, how when it was let out into open space after the deluge swept over the vast earth, and finding no spot for its dainty feet returned to the Ark and its keeper; how it was again set free and returned once more, this time with an olive branch in its beak; and how again sent out it returned no more. We may turn this story into an allegory and see in the vast void of the waters, the mass of floating corruption, the misty heaviness of the atmosphere, the state of our race before the coming of our Savior. One look back at heathendom, cultured in Rome and Greece, uncultured in Gaul and Britain and the far north, unknown in the distant east, shows us vice, ignorance, helplessness. God brooded over the face of the earth. His divine look did not rest upon the luxurious Romans or warlike barbarians or the mystical dwellers of the East. It dwelt upon His chosen people in the little land of Palestine. And there was no creature pure enough for His purposes. Even amongst the hundreds of holy Jews there was none with a spotless purity. Nor could there be, for sinlessness was a lost inheritance, and could only come from Heaven again. And it did come from Heaven as a new gift, a new grace, a chain of many more, each more glorious than the last. This new gift was Mary. Like a tender branch of olive her birth gave promise of a resting-place for the divine Dove; and as the weeks of time flew past and Mary grew in beauty and grace, this Dove hovered over her and found a resting-place in her breast.

Of the thousands of feasts that are kept in the Church there are only three birthdays, and these are kept because of their sinlessness. The birthday of Saint John the Baptist, June 24th, is a feast day with an octave because he was freed from original sin by Our Lady's visit to his mother. The birthday of our Lady, the 8th of September, is a day of devotion because she was immaculate even in her Conception. Our Lord's birthday, Christmas Day, is a day of obligation because we have no higher way of showing honor to Him, the Eternal Son of God, made man. And these three births, differing in degree more widely than the twinkling star, the moon, and the glorious sun as seen from the earth, point out by their celebration the love there is in Heaven and in the Church for sinless purity. The grace, then, we must ask today is that peerless virtue. "We must ask it of the little One who came like an olive branch, a token that at last there was to be a fitting resting-place for the Son of God.

The keeping of birthdays is a very good custom, but the feast of the patron saint is the day for celebration and receives all the honors. At least we can turn the day into a most blessedly spiritual feast, a day of thanksgiving for all the blessings of life. For what is a birthday but a day commemorating our entrance into this life? Is this life of ours not a talent bestowed upon us by God, so that He may add many yet more precious? Is it not a bit of eternity marked off for probation and merits, differing from it only as the sowing time differs from the harvesting? So it ought to be a day of hearty thanksgiving, of resolution and contrition.

Now, if we thank God for our own birthdays, how much more ought we to thank Him for Mary's? Let us think over our Lady's life - not here, there is not space - but some time during the day. Think over her early years in the holy temple at Jerusalem, her thirty years' loving service upon our Lord upon earth, when she shared His labor. His joys, His suffering; call to mind her three hours' agonizing stand at the foot of the Cross; her life of sacrifice for the early Christians; her beautiful death; her blessed Assumption. Think of her graces and her correspondence with them; her privileges and her use of them; her powers and her dispensation of them. All this we have to be thankful for. And to thank for the blessings given to others is a most profitable exercise. It raises our mind to appreciate fully, to admire generously, to rejoice unselfishly. It makes us richer too, because in a sense we possess those things which we mentally enjoy. And to share our Lady's blessings will make us rich indeed.

- taken from Light from the Altar, edited by Father James J McGovern, 1906