Letter from the Pastor
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September 8, 2024
Of course the circumstances of the Mary’s infancy and early life are not recorded in the Bible. However, other documents and traditions described the circumstances of her birth. These accounts, although not considered reliable in the same manner as the Bible, outline some of the Church’s traditional beliefs about the birth of Mary.
The “Protoevangelium of James,” (early second century), describes Mary’s father Joachim as a wealthy member of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Joachim was deeply grieved, along with his wife Anne, by their childlessness. “They wondered whether their inability to conceive a child might signify God’s displeasure with them.
An angel revealed to St. Anne that all generations would honor her future child.
Saint Augustine described the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary as an event of cosmic and historic significance, and an appropriate prelude to the birth of Jesus Christ: “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley.”
With every human birth we have new hope for our world. The love of a man and woman joins with God in His creative work. Loving parents show love and hope in a world filled with sorrows. The new child has the potential to be a channel of God’s love and peace to the world.
This is all true in a splendid way in Mary. Our Lord is the perfect expression of God’s love; Mary is the foreshadowing of that love. Mary is the dawn of our salvation.
Her birth represents the entrance into the world, the dawn of a new grace, a new blessing, and grace that would come with her Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
