September 8, 2020 Reflection – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

(c) Mary TV

September 8, 2020
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Dear Family of Mary!

Today we celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary!  The Church honors Our Lady on her birthday because she is Our Mother!!  She is The Mother!!  Children love to sing the praises of their mother!  How much more should we praise and thank our Heavenly Mother! With complete joy!!!

Our Lady told us how much she loves us and shared these beautiful desires of her heart:

“Dear children! Today I call you to prayer. I am with you and I love you all. I am your Mother and I wish that your hearts be similar to my heart. Little children, without prayer you cannot live and say that you are mine. Prayer is joy. Prayer is what the human heart desires. Therefore, get closer, little children, to my Immaculate Heart and you will discover God. Thank you for having responded to my call.” (November 25, 1994)

Our Mother wants us to get closer to her Immaculate Heart, so that we can discover God!  She wants our hearts to be similar to her heart because she loves us so much and wants us to share in her heavenly joy!  She is truly our Mother!!

Here is a hymn of joy and wonder that Saint Anselm wrote about the wonders of Our Lady.  We can let Anselm’s words of joy sing through our hearts as we ponder the mysteries of Our Lady!  This is a birthday to celebrate!

From a sermon by Saint Anselm, bishop
(Oratio 52: PL 158, 955-956)

Virgin Mary, all nature is blessed by you

Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendor by men who believe in God. The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.

Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom, and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.

Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator himself has been blessed by creation.

To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.

God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.

Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan

©Mary TV 2020