08/09/2023

No matter how we feel this morning, the Church's chosen readings for mass tell us that we should be joyful. Our Lady's birth was the beginning of the worldly process that would complete God's gift of salvation to all mankind. It is God's will that his creation in his  "image and likeness" should live in holiness to be the "Human Being" that knows, loves and serves in the physical reality that is the Universe.

We have no record of the date. St Matthew and all the Apostles who knew her did not ever get invited to a "birthday party" but they knew that it was out of her humanity that the only begotten Son was born. The length of the genealogy  that begins his narrative is for us tediously long but even today there are still illiterate dwellers in the deserts of Arabia who remember similarly long lists of the names of their forefathers.

Luke and Matthew were trying to emphasise Jesus' place in the history of the Jews that can be found in the Old Testament. It is the record of God's providential relationship with his chosen people. It is the "according to the Scriptures" to which the Scribes and the Pharisees were devoted and which our Lord made no secret of their fulfillment in himself. 

Every time that we begin to think about Jesus we have  to know him as true man and true God. The Incarnation was unknown except to Mary. Joseph was totally dumb-founded for he knew the girl he was to marry as a quietly God fearing credit to her parents. His shock at her pregnancy was completely soothed by the Holy Spirit and he was thus chosen to be the first man of true faith in the Son of God.

Before Jesus, IAMIAM, the wholeness of God revealed himself to the prophets. "The Lord is going to abandon them till the time she who is to give birth, gives birth" but with Mary and Joseph he for the first time openly reveals himself as a Trinity of persons and a oneness of being. Our Lady totally believed and Joseph was the first to believe with her as he continued to care for Mary, Our Lady, Theotokos.

Dear Lord, I only want to pray. To worship you and to keep free from sin. Meditating on that day in Nazareth when you inspired St Joseph to accept your revelation made to Mary as truth without cavil makes me want to sing out with joy. How can it be that a Church with such glorious beginnings has fallen into the unholy mess much of it is today? May Mary, whose birth we celebrate with joy today lead all the Saints in prayer that the mercy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit continues to protect us from the snares of the Devil whom St John saw as crushed under her heel.