The Meaning of Celebrating Mary’s Birth!

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mic 5: 1-4a; Mt 1: 1-16, 18-23

The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary inspires us to respond to God wholly and fully. 

Today we are invited to ask, ‘Why do we celebrate the birth of Mary?’ At first sight, Mary’s birth looks very ordinary, shorn of any greatness that we might often assume. However, reading her life, we understand that her birth itself is part of God’s grand plan of salvation for humanity. 

I find three reasons to celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

1. In Mary, heaven meets humanity. Through Mary, God meets humanity because the Son of God will take flesh in her. Hence, she becomes the passage for heaven to enter into human history. God could have chosen spectacular ways of breaking into the world. However, God chose a holy woman through whom He would have a humble entry as a child to make Himself visible to humanity. Thus, God’s entry into the world did not begin with a miracle but with an encounter, which also became Mary’s vocation. 

Mary’s life invites us to ponder if God meets others through us. Do people encounter something of God’s love through us? Mary teaches us that we all can become the channels of God’s presence. Her birth is a reminder that God sends each one of us into the world with the express purpose of coming closer to humanity. Are we the channels of God’s presence for someone else?

2. In Mary, freedom finds its meaning. Mary’s life teaches us what it means to be truly free. The Mother of the Lord helps us distinguish between ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom for.’ She did not just idealize the passive idea of ‘freedom from’ without knowing what to do with it. Instead, with her freedom, she could say, ‘Let it be done to me according to your Word’ (Lk 1: 38). In her freedom, Mary did not walk away from but towards God. In total and complete freedom, Mary surrenders herself to God’s plan. 

Mary invites us to ask what we do with our freedom. Why or what am I free for? Mary reminds us that our freedom is not to opt for a life without God but to cooperate with God’s will. Mary’s greatness lies in the fact that she used her freedom to cooperate with God. This is why her ‘yes’ becomes the most beautiful expression of human freedom. 

3. In Mary, we find someone who carries heaven within herself. By carrying Jesus within her womb, Mary carries the heaven within herself. This is why, wherever she went, others could experience the blessing of her presence. When Mary went to visit Elizabeth, John the Baptist leaped in joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Her elderly cousin Elizabeth herself was ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Lk 1: 41). Because she carried heaven within herself, she brought joy to people like the shepherds and the Magi too. By the kind of joy Mary brought to others, we understand what it means to carry heaven within ourselves.

Mary’s life symbolizes the vocation of every Christian. Through baptism, every one of us is called to carry Christ. Hence, the invitation to become bearers of heaven is an invitation extended to the entire Christian community, regardless of any human-made distinction we often make. This is precisely why Christians, who are carriers of Christ, cannot be counter witnesses to the Gospel call to spread joy, peace, and love. After all, carrying Christ is carrying heaven itself. 

For these reasons, Mary’s birth cannot be a shallow or meaningless celebration. It is a celebration that profoundly challenges us with unsettling questions.

This is why we must be careful not to make a Mary of our own liking. Instead, we need to gaze into the core of Mary’s being to understand and appreciate what it means to become a channel through whom God meets humanity, to use our freedom for God, and to carry heaven within us. 

Let us pray that, like Mary, we all may become God’s wonderful instruments on earth. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar