Homily for Monday, 8 September 2014– Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 13:6ab, 6c; Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Whose birthday are we celebrating today, anyway? Why, on this Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, do we hear in our Gospel reading a genealogy from Joseph’s side of the Holy Family? And then we hear nothing of Mary’s Nativity. In fact Matthew turns his focus to Jesus’ Nativity.

True, Mary is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy, and then again as having conceived of Jesus by the Holy Spirit and brought him to birth. Even so, Mary is not the focus of this beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. Joseph is, and then Jesus is. Mary’s nativity is never even mentioned in the Bible. And so why do we celebrate this birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary?

 I like to think of Mary in Scripture as somebody who points to realities and people beyond herself. St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, from which we hear today, that “those [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Mary is the first person in God’s plan to save us, a plan that reaches its fullness in the birth of Jesus Christ, to have been perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son,” but not because it was ever Mary’s plan to bring the Son of God into the world. This was God’s plan, although Mary had to consent to it.

Mary’s birth is part of God’s plan of salvation, and this plan of salvation is for us; to save us. Mary shows us how we, too, might be “conformed to the image of” Christ as she is. Mary points to us. Mary’s birthday is a celebration of our birthday as a redeemed people; a people promised God’s salvation through Christ’s becoming human, like us in all things but sin.

We are given a beautiful prayer for today’s Feast of the Nativity of Mary that we will pray in a few moments over the gifts of bread and wine when they are brought to the altar. We pray in this prayer “to be given strength by the humanity of [God’s] Son, who from [Mary] was pleased to take flesh.” Just before this Prayer over the Offerings, at every Mass the priest silently prays in similar words as the water and wine are mixed: “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity” (this for those of us who may wonder sometimes what we priests pray under our breath at the altar!).

Jesus’ humanity, not only his divinity, matters for our salvation. Mary’s “yes” to God’s plan made Jesus’ becoming human possible. But God’s plan to save us did not start with Mary’s “yes” to God. It started from the moment of creation. It took shape in a special way through the Birth of Mary, perfect image of Christ in his humanity; perfect image of who we are called to be: a people redeemed and saved; a people perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son.”