Posted on 09/08/2026 8:32:08 AM PDT by ebb tide
Today the liturgy celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We post the refection of the day from the Magnificat. It's called, "The Birth of the Divine Abode" and reads like a poem. The author is Saint Andrew of Crete who was a Greek monk, archbishop, theologian, and hymnographer, and influential in the development of the Byzantine liturgy.
The present festival is for us the beginning of feasts…. This first day of the feasts…offers creation a new joy. Have courage, it says, this festival is a birthday and a remodelling of the race. For a Virgin now is born and nursed and moulded; and a Mother is prepared for God, the All-Ruler of the ages.
Therefore let all things rejoice together today and let nature skip: Let heaven rejoice above and let the clouds rain righteousness! (Is 45:8); let the mountains drop sweetness and the hills exultation! For the Lord had mercy on his people, having raised the horn of our salvation in the house of his servant David (Lk 1:69), [namely] that supremely unblemished Virgin, from whom [came] Christ, the salvation and the expectation of the nations. Let every right-judging soul there fore now dance, and let nature invite creation to its own renewal and remaking!…
Let there be one common festival today of heavenly and earthly things…. For today the created precinct of the Creator of all things has been established, and the creature is newly prepared as divine abode for the Creator. Today the nature that was formerly turned to earth takes on the beginning of deification, and the dust that has been exalted is urged to return to the glory that is on high.
Happy birthday to our Blessed Mother. Queen of Peace, pray for us!
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The BIRTH of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY announced joy and the near approach of salvation to the lost world. Mary was brought forth in the world not like other children of Adam, infected with the loathsome contagion of sin, but pure, holy, beautiful, and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces which became her who was chosen to be the Mother of God. She appeared indeed in the weak state of our mortality; but in the eyes of Heaven she already transcended the highest seraph in purity, brightness, and the richest ornaments of grace. If we celebrate the birthdays of the great ones of this earth, how ought we to rejoice in that of the Virgin Mary, presenting to God the best homage of our praises and thanksgiving for the great mercies He has shown in her, and imploring her mediation with her Son in our behalf! Christ will not reject the supplications of His mother, whom He was pleased to obey whilst on earth. Her love, care, and tenderness for Him, the title and qualities which she bears, the charity and graces with which she is adorned, and the crown of glory with which she is honored, must incline Him readily to receive her recommendations and petitions.
ST. ADRIAN suffered martyrdom with twenty-five others at Nicomedia under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303.
Ping
Happy Birthday Blessed Mother!
Amen.
Happy Birthday, Dear Lady.
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