More devotees attended Mass and other activities lined up to celebrate Mama Mary's birthday yesterday, September 8. More chairs were added, flowers were offered, prayers and rosaries were recited to honor Mama Mary!
A priest at the Holy Family Parish Church, during his homily, asked us to imagine what a young Mary would have dreamt and planned for herself before the angel appeared before her bearing the news from God about her role for our redemption.
This priest mentioned that like any other person, the young Mary then may have included in her dreams, marriage to a fine partner, having a family, living peacefully with everyone in their small community. She may have had dreams and plans like most girls her age in her hometown then.
Did the young Mary imagine she would be asked to bear Baby Jesus, that she would give birth to Him at a lowly stable, and would live to see Him carry the cross and be crucified? For sure, the priest said, the young Mary may have had other dreams and other plans. However, with eyes fixed on God and with love for God in her heart, she chose to follow God's will and plan for her.
As Peter G. van Breemen, S.J, wrote, in his book, Called by Name, Mary was a woman of faith. Mama Mary is praised and remembered because of her faith: "Blessed is she who believed" (Lk 1:45) When a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, " Happy is the womb that bore you and the breasts you sucked! Jesus replied, " Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it!" (Lk 11:27-28). Mama Mary heard the Word of God and kept it and lived for it. " I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me." (Lk 1:38).
Van Breemen points to St. Bernard who wrote that Mary the Virgin believed and in her faith the Virgin conceived. St. Augustine also had this famous dictum: "She first conceived him in her heart before conceiving him in her womb."
Van Breemen continued, "no one heard the Word of God more than Mary: She opened herself completely to it. Her response to the message of the Annunciation was a simple surrendering of herself wholly to a life of faith. Mary believed that God had called her; she surrendered herself to that call and followed him into the unknown. She did not yet know where the word of God would lead her, but she was prepared to put her whole life at stake, like Abraham."
From the Annunciation, Van Breemen wrote, "Mary began an unknown future. Holding on to but the Word of God, Mary advanced from one surprise to another. Everything in her life seemed different, contrary to what she expected or imagined, and all circumstances of her life demanded of her a response of faith."
Van Breemen concludes: "Because Mama Mary was open and receptive, she let all God's glory through. Because she was transparent, the fullness of God's glory did come through her and into this world – The word was made flesh, he lived among us and we saw his glory.( Jn 1:14)."
St. Louis de Monfort said, "we never give more honor to Jesus than when we honor His Mother, and we honor her simply and solely to honor Him more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek-Jesus, Her Son."
And God our Father is glorified and praised forever.