Letter from the Pastor
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September 7, 2025On September 8th, 1953, Sr. Mary Blanche, O.P., our schools first principal welcomed the children to St. Margaret’s School for the first time. This past Thursday, our Principal,
Mrs. Patricia Maldonado opened the doors to our school for the 72nd Academic Year. We are well blessed to have such a good Catholic and academic school under the leadership of our Principal, our dedicated faculty and staff and generous parents, and great kids.
St. Margaret’s School has always been admired in Rockland County and the Archdiocese of New York as a leading school in religious formation, academics, parental involvement and a caring, Christian environment. Our academic scores are way above the national and local school averages and even the Archdiocese of NY schools. We should be proud of our school, one of only three left here in Rockland County.
I also would like to thank our parishioners and our alumni who still support the School. We will offer the traditional Mass of the Holy Spirit on September 19th to open the school year.
The Church celebrates only three birthdays. The feast day of the saints is called the dies natalis, or the “day of their birth” to eternity. The three natural birthdays are Our Lord’s on Christmas, the Birth of Our Blessed Lady and St. John the Baptist.
September 8th is the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary, nine months after December 8th, her Immaculate Conception as the child of Saints Joachim and Anne. The Church has celebrated Mary’s birth since at least the sixth century. A September birth was chosen because the Eastern Church began its Church year with September. The September 8th date helped determine the date for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th. Also, in the 5th century on this day, a basilica was dedicated in Jerusalem on the site of Mary’s childhood home.
Of course, the circumstances of 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.
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 baby born we have new hope for our world. The love of a man and woman joins with God in His creative work. Loving parents realize their child is a gift. They become stewards of their children, not theirs to keep, rather to give 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 of the dawn of a new grace, a new blessing, and grace that would come with her Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
As we begin a new academic year, we place our school and all our school children under the mantle of our Blessed Lady Mary.