Reading from Benedictus: Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI (In other words, the Pope wrote this.)Mary's birthday is exceptional among the feasts in which honor is paid to saints, in that the Church usually does not celebrate the day of birth. The Church's practice was quite different here from that of pagan Greece or Rome, where the birthday of a great man - a Caesar or an Augustus, for example - was celebrated with great pomp as a day of redemption.
The Church always argued that it was premature to celebrate a birthday because the rest of the life of a person born on that day was subject to such ambiguity. It was, in other words, impossible to predict the answers to certain questions simply on the basis of a person's birthday. Would his life be a reason for celebration? Would the person who was born really be able to be glad about the day that he came into the world? Would the world be glad that this person had been born or would it curse the day he was born? ...No, the Church has always celebrated the day of death, believing that it is only possible to celebrate a person's life when he has passed beyond that life into death and judgment...
Mary was the gate through which He came into the world and not simply the external gateway. She had already conceived Jesus in her heart before she became his mother according to the body, as Augustine so meaningfully said. Her soul was the space from which God was able to gain access into humanity. Unlike the great and mighty ones of this earth, Mary, the believer who bore the light of God in her heart, was able to play her vital part in changing the very foundation of the world. The world can be truly changed only by the power of the soul.
The Church always argued that it was premature to celebrate a birthday because the rest of the life of a person born on that day was subject to such ambiguity. It was, in other words, impossible to predict the answers to certain questions simply on the basis of a person's birthday. Would his life be a reason for celebration? Would the person who was born really be able to be glad about the day that he came into the world? Would the world be glad that this person had been born or would it curse the day he was born? ...No, the Church has always celebrated the day of death, believing that it is only possible to celebrate a person's life when he has passed beyond that life into death and judgment...
Mary was the gate through which He came into the world and not simply the external gateway. She had already conceived Jesus in her heart before she became his mother according to the body, as Augustine so meaningfully said. Her soul was the space from which God was able to gain access into humanity. Unlike the great and mighty ones of this earth, Mary, the believer who bore the light of God in her heart, was able to play her vital part in changing the very foundation of the world. The world can be truly changed only by the power of the soul.
Ave Maria!
Wow. I really like that last sentance.
ReplyDelete-Judi