The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friends,

"The Church in keeping a solemn festival for the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates the dawning of redemption over the world when, after a long period of waiting, there was born she who was to be the Mother of our Savior. In memory of all that this birth implied the Church rejoices and asks God for an increase of the graces of peace bestowed on man by the mystery of the Incarnation.

This feast, which is older in the East than in the West, appears to have been introduced into the Roman liturgy at the end of the seventh century by Pope Sergius I. The date of September 8, fixed by Sergius, served last century to fix that of the Immaculate Conception on December 8." (Introduction to today's Mass, "Saint Andrew Daily Missal 1958)

All who love Jesus are not content to revere only what He said and did. We see that all that He touched and all that touched Him are made holy. The veil that Saint Veronica used to wipe the bloody Face of Jesus became a treasured holy relic. The tassel or hem of Jesus' garment was made holy and had the power to heal the woman troubled with the issue of blood, just because He wore it. Those who heard Jesus were motivated to cry out that the breasts that nursed Jesus and the womb that bore Him are truly blessed.

All that is in any way connected to Jesus is precious to those who love Him. Hence we see that the Church honors Mary as the Mother of God. This magnificent privilege of hers did not destroy her virginity but rather sanctified it —rendering her the Virgin Mother of God. The love of the Church for Mary inspires us to seek out the date of her birth, and honor the day on which she first saw the light of day and breathed fresh air. In honoring Jesus we naturally are led to honor His Holy Mother. Pope Sergius I in the early days of the Church gave us this date for a celebration of Mary's birth to satisfy our yearning and need to honor Jesus through her whom He loved most.

Love knows no bounds or limits. So we see that the Church sought to honor Mary from the very moment of her creation in her mother's womb, and gave us the corresponding feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8. We continue onward finding that the mother and father of Mary (Saint Ann and Saint Joachim) are likewise holy and worthy of praise. The genealogy in today's Gospel takes us back to King David and Abraham. If we continue in this line we ultimately return to God who created man. In this manner, God is praised and loved in all whom we praise, honor, and love.

Before the birth of Jesus, men looked forward to the coming of the Redeemer. Since the birth of Jesus, we look back to the day on which He came to us. We celebrate His birth, and then we look back further to celebrate His Incarnation (The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, March 25). The belief of the Church is clear that life on this earth begins at conception.

We are all made in the image and likeness of God. Our lives are meant to be holy and even sacred from the very moment of our conception. God gives life not with our births, but rather with our conception. Our birth is just one stage of our lives here on earth. The mother's womb is a sanctuary or temple where God creates life. It is in the dark recesses of the womb that miracles happen. The demons have been at work since the beginning of time trying to desecrate the sacredness of this life, the womb in which it is created by God, and of marriage which forms the best home for new life to begin and develop.

We should frequently remind ourselves and others of the holiness of life. Our lives are not our own —they belong to God. He created them, He has given rules by which they are to be lived, He will call us to an account of our lives on the Day of Judgment. Our lives need to be seen as something that is sacred, and holy. We must not only respect life but love and cherish it as a precious gift from God. We need to re-frame our perceptions of sexual reproduction. It is the work of demons that has made sexual relations dirty, crude, vulgar and base. They have done all that they can to desecrate the holy work of God through pornography, self-abuse, promiscuous lives, prostitution, fornication, adultery, and the murder of the pre-born. The sacredness of marriage has all but been lost in our world today with divorce and re-marriage, and the scourge of anti-life "birth control".

On this feast day of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mother, let us renew our appreciation for the sacredness of her life that God has made. From this, let us understand that all that God has made, especially every human life is precious and sacred —other's lives, our own lives, and all the lives that God may ever entrust to us. May we recognize the demonic assaults against the holiness of life, and wage an unrelenting war against them.

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