Update: High Mass will be offered at Holy Family Church at 7:30 pm on Monday 8 September.

Nine months ago, Our Lady was immaculately conceived in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne, by her father Saint Joachim. The Feast of that Immaculate Conception, 8 December, is a much greater Feast than 8 September, but we desire to recall Our Lady’s birthday, too—the birth of the woman destined by God from the beginning of time to be born of the House of David and the Tribe of Judah, the woman whose enmity toward Satan was spoken of as far back as Genesis 3:15, the woman whom Saint John saw crowned with stars and with the moon at her feet in Apocalypse 12, the woman whom God chose to bear His Son and bring life to the world. With this Feast on 8 September, the line between the Old and New Testaments has been crossed; the New Covenant is imminent! This Feast is one of only three birthdays honoured in the liturgical year (the others being that of Saint John the Baptist and that of Jesus Christ Himself; all three were born without original sin, although only Mary and Jesus were free from sin at the moments of conception). We know little about Mary’s birth and youth, most of our information coming from the apocryphal Gospel of the Nativity of Mary (translated from the Hebrew by Saint Jerome, AD 340–420), the Protevangelium of Saint James (dated to c. AD 125), and the visions of various mystics through the years. There are no specific traditions today, aside from those offered on all Marian Feasts, such as a recitation of the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Litany of Loreto. Some places have the custom of making a birthday cake for Our Lady on this day.

The image above an early Renaissance painting of the Nativity of Our Lady by the Sienese artist Andrea di Bartolo (active 1389–1428).