September 8th – The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.

Adam Paige
Sep 7
5 min read

September 8th – Additional Meditation. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin.

Summary of the Morrow’s Meditation

To-morrow the Church will celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Mary; and in order better to understand the splendors of this beautiful feast we will consider:1st, what a beautiful day it was for God; 2d, what a beautiful day it was for Mary; 3d, what a beautiful day it was for the whole human race. We will then make the resolution:1st, to renew our devotion towards the Blessed Virgin; 2d, to be born again to a better life, more fervent and more worthy of a child of Mary. Our spiritual nosegay shall be the prayer of the Church: “Show thyself to be our mother.”

Meditation for the Morning.

Let us thank God for the inestimable gift He made to the earth in giving birth to Mary, our mother, our advocate, our mediatrix, the mother of our Redeemer. We can never thank Him enough for so great a blessing.

The Birth of Mary was a Beautiful Day for God.

On this day, in fact, there appeared upon earth the greatest marvel on which the sun ever shone, a creature who was at one and the same time the cherished daughter of the Father, the future mother of the Word, and destined to become the beloved spouse of the Holy Ghost; a creature who was a little infant, and already surpassing in greatness and in dignity, not only all creatures who have ever existed or whoever will exist, but also all possible creatures, since these creatures could never be anything but the servants of God, while Mary — O immeasurable difference ! — is the daughter, the mother, and the spouse; a creature enriched with all the gifts of holiness, with all the supernatural virtues which belong to the condition of a creature; a creature who is the masterpiece of the power of the Father, of the wisdom of the Son, of the love of the Holy Ghost, seeing that it was incumbent on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to make a person linked with them by such intimate relations all that it was possible to be; a creature, consequently, whom they looked at with love, whom they admired with delight, in whom they took the pleasure which the workman feels in his master piece. O Mary, in thy little cradle I love to contemplate thee as being the paradise of God upon earth, as beautiful above expression and without the shadow of a spot. Thou art still only an infant, and already thou art the object of the complaisance of the Most Holy Trinity. Oh, what happiness is thine ! To please God is the greatest of all kinds of happiness; and this happiness, O my mother, thou hast enjoyed from the day of thy birth ! This happiness I can also enjoy myself in a certain degree by means of the sanctity of my life, by the purity of my intentions in all things; for, O my God, in order to please Thee, it is sufficient to have the will to do so ! O consoling thought !

The Birth of Mary was a Beautiful Day for Herself.

What a joy it was for her heart to see herself by the aid of her reason, which was perfectly developed, as being the object of the tender affection of St. Anne, her mother, and presented by her to the Most Holy Trinity as the most beautiful present that earth could give to heaven, and lovingly received by the Three Divine Persons ! What joy for her to unite herself with all the pious sentiments of her holy mother, and to offer her whole being to the great God, living in order to be wholly His, living and breathing only for Him, and not having a single pulsation of her heart which is not directed towards Him ! What joy to see heaven give such a magnificent reply to her offering, and inundate her with an immense holiness, which incomparably surpasses the holiness of all the blessed spirits ! What joy to see herself saluted by the Most Holy Trinity, when addressing her in the words of the Canticle it says: “Thou art all fair, O My love, and there is not a spot in thee” (Cant. iv. 7). “One is My dove, My perfect one is but one” (Cant. vi. 8); saluted at the same time by all the angels, who exclaim, How lovely she is, this flower which has come to blossom on earth; she is filled with delights (Cant. viii. 5). She is “as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun” (Cant. vi. 9). Amidst so many causes of joy, the new-born infant utters in the bottom of her heart the words which later on she will repeat with her pure lips: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke i. 46, 47). Let us unite ourselves with the joys of the Blessed Virgin, let us bless God for them, let us con gratulate Mary, and let us learn from her to place all our joys in the Lord, and not to desire any others. In God alone is true joy, the joy which does not leave any remorse in its train, the joy which completely satisfies the heart, and is for it a foretaste of Paradise. Let us leave to the world the false joys which are a source of dissipation, which seduce, which corrupt, and which are incompatible with true and solid virtue.

The Birth of Mary was a Beautiful Day for the whole Human Race.

It was, indeed, a day of glory for the world, of happiness, of hope, and of ineffable edification, 1st. A day of glory; for what honor was it not for human nature that a child of Adam should be destined to become the mother and the spouse of a God ! Who would have imagined such grandeur in a simple creature, and what thanksgiving ought we not to render to God for it ? 2d. A day of happiness; for what happiness for the world was not the apparition of the star which was the precursor of the Sun of justice, the birth of her whom Heaven had chosen to be the mediator and the advocate of men in the presence of divine justice ! 3d. A day of hope; for this holy child will one day be our mother and will co-operate in the designs of love and mercy which God entertains in regard to us. 4th. A day of ineffable edification; for what does she do in her cradle ? She prays for herself and for us. She prays for herself, for she must first of all sanctify herself and advance every day from virtue to virtue; she prays for us, because she knows that her mission is to save the world and to co-operate in all the designs of God respecting the salvation of men. Is it thus that we fulfil our mission upon earth ? Do we labor to sanctify ourselves and to sanctify others?

Resolutions and spiritual nosegay as above.

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