Daily Retreat 09/08/07
2007 Sep 8 Sat: Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary F
Mi 5: 1-4a or Rom 8: 28-30/ Ps 12(13): 6ab. 6c/ Mt 1: 1-16. 18-23
From today’s readings: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.... With delight I rejoice in the Lord.... She will bear a Son and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins....”
The Real Face of Mary
It's easy for Mary and the other saints to fade into abstract images in our lives - people we read about in history books, but hardly connected at all to our modern lives. The Church reminds us, however, that all members of the mystical Body of Christ are alive and united in Christ -and those in Heaven with God are more alive and united than we on earth are! So, those who denigrate the blessed Mother of Christ to the role of a superfluous appendix in the Body of Christ, are at the same time myopically missing the whole vision of the full stature of the mystical Body of Christ.
Today's feast of the Birth of Mary presents us with a motive to concretize our image of Mary, imagining the day of her birth and the mirth of her own parents, an event which actually occurred, even if omitted from every history book and excluded from any surviving archeological evidence. Was Mary actually born on September 8th? In all honesty, the calendar odds are against it, just as the odds are against December 25th as the actual, factual birthday of Christ. But the accident that those dates weren't specifically recorded in history does not preclude us from celebrating such joyful days in the history of salvation, for those days did occur, and a variety of traditional and devotional factors have established September 8th as the day for the whole world to say, "Happy Birthday Mary!"
Mi 5: 1-4a or Rom 8: 28-30/ Ps 12(13): 6ab. 6c/ Mt 1: 1-16. 18-23
From today’s readings: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.... With delight I rejoice in the Lord.... She will bear a Son and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins....”
The Real Face of Mary
It's easy for Mary and the other saints to fade into abstract images in our lives - people we read about in history books, but hardly connected at all to our modern lives. The Church reminds us, however, that all members of the mystical Body of Christ are alive and united in Christ -and those in Heaven with God are more alive and united than we on earth are! So, those who denigrate the blessed Mother of Christ to the role of a superfluous appendix in the Body of Christ, are at the same time myopically missing the whole vision of the full stature of the mystical Body of Christ.
Today's feast of the Birth of Mary presents us with a motive to concretize our image of Mary, imagining the day of her birth and the mirth of her own parents, an event which actually occurred, even if omitted from every history book and excluded from any surviving archeological evidence. Was Mary actually born on September 8th? In all honesty, the calendar odds are against it, just as the odds are against December 25th as the actual, factual birthday of Christ. But the accident that those dates weren't specifically recorded in history does not preclude us from celebrating such joyful days in the history of salvation, for those days did occur, and a variety of traditional and devotional factors have established September 8th as the day for the whole world to say, "Happy Birthday Mary!"
posted by FrPitstick | 9/06/2007
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