Happy Birthday, Mother Mary!

Happy Birthday, Blessed Mother Mary! The Mother of God our Savior and Redeemer was once herself a baby in the arms of her mother Saint Anne. This is the human reality of our faith in a particularly tender and beautiful realization. Mary, the woman who brings Jesus to us, is so lovable in her own history which is entirely shaped for Him. She is the first light after a long night of human misery and longing for the truth of life. She lives “already” the mystery of His grace, the mystery of our salvation that encompasses her whole history and, through her obedience, breaks into our history and changes it by changing us.

Dear Mother Mary, Refuge of Sinners, I am so grateful to you for everything!

To celebrate this feast day, Pope Leo XIV once again visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano (about an hour east of Rome), which is cared for by his own beloved Augustinian brothers. Here are a few excerpts from his homily (emphasis mine):

“I am joyfully here again, to celebrate with you the Vigil of the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin and to entrust to the Child Mary whatever is still being born in this poor yet magnificent humanity: fragile as a sprout, but a sign of God's faithfulness. Yes, Mary is the dawn of a different day, of our world finally freed from evil….

“Dear brothers and sisters, we feel dizzy before this Mystery: it is impossible to get used to it! We celebrate the birth of a child called to become the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God who saves. And yet, she is born simply a child, like the daughters and granddaughters we hold in our arms. Today we have for her noble and lofty titles, of Lady and Queen, but God's way has been and remains simpler and more silent, yet no less powerful and transformative. It is the way of Jesus himself, ‘the firstborn among many brethren’ (Romans 8:29). Well, like Mary, we too are ‘predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son’ (ibid.): by grace, certainly, but desiring and preferring his path — his choices, his journey — to other ways. In Jesus Christ, God has chosen the humblest historical conditions and the humblest of creatures to manifest the uniqueness of his Kingdom, in which arrogance has no place and omnipotence is creation, service, and care for life.

“Today, in the Collect, turning to little Mary, we asked that ‘the celebration of her birth may increase our peace.’… We want to imagine peace — to broaden the boundaries of understanding and paint it in our souls — to recognize that it already exists, to welcome it and serve it. It is the gift of God, the breath of the Risen One, the work of the Holy Spirit. Let us allow peace to grow within us. It will sprout in the world. And the Mother of Good Counsel will accompany us in this mission.”