September 8, 2025 Reflection – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary September 8, 2025 Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Dear Family of Mary! Today we celebrate our Heavenly Mother’s Earthly Birthday!! And what a celebration it should be!! She, through the prevenient grace coming from Jesus’ death on the cross, was conceived without sin, the second Eve, who would never sin, and make it possible for Jesus to be conceived in her womb for us all!!! Wow!! I am presenting a text written by Fr. Paul Scalia on Our Lady’s conception and birth. It came from the Magnificat, Sept. 2025. It is most beautiful. We need to have such beauty in our minds these days!! I will arrange the text so that we can ponder it better: The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary invokes our Lady as “Virgin most renowned.” It is of course a fair description—most renowned because she alone is both Virgin and Mother; most renowned because through her virginity she became the Mother of God; most renowned as she herself foretold: For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. The Latin for this invocation brings out another dimension: Virgo praedicanda—literally, “Virgin needing to be proclaimed”—not that she is not already known and renowned, but that she still needs to be made known. And this is so for one simple reason: Mary is the full flowering of the grace of Jesus Christ. To know her is to know what he has accomplished, what his victory has won. She shows in a singular manner what all of us are called to become…. In Mary we find the glorious truth that God created one of us without sin—that he became her Son, was carried in her womb, rested in her lap, obeyed her words…and that he assumed her body and soul to himself…. She is the realization of all that he has promised us. The singular graces she received reveal what God intends to accomplish for all…. By keeping her free from sin, he shows that he desires to deliver all of us from sin and make us full of grace—defined by grace, as she was. In her becoming the Mother of God, we learn that he desires us to conceive him in our thoughts and bring him forth by our words and actions. He makes her virginity fruitful because he intends our souls likewise to be pure and fruitful. And he assumes her body and soul into heaven because he desires to raise our bodies to the same glory. In proclaiming Mary we make known not only Christ’s masterpiece of grace but also what he desires to accomplish in us. Father Paul Scalia (Father Scalia is a priest in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia, where he serves as Vicar for Clergy and pastor of Saint James in Falls Church. / From That Nothing May Be Lost: Reflections on Catholic Doctrine and Devotion. © 2017, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA. www.ignatius.com.) May we ponder Our Lady in her Nativity, pure and spotless, given to us as our Mother because she is Jesus’ Mother! By her very existence she calls us to holiness!! Amen! In Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Cathy Nolan Mary TV.TV P.S. Update on Denis! We were not able to do our usual shows on Mary TV last week because Denis had a difficult surgery on Wednesday, at a hospital three hours from our home. We spent last week there. His surgery was succeessful, and we are able to be back up, live, on Mary TV today (Monday). Thank you for your prayers and your patience! We missed you all!! www.marytv.tv https://marytv.tv/donate/