580. September 8, Birthday of Our Lady

Meditations no. 510 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

The Blessed Virgin, our Mother, accepts us as we are, with our miseries, if we struggle to overcome them.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin. It is a good day to live our Marian piety in a natural way, without doing anything strange. When the birthday of someone in your family comes up, you wish them happy birthday, right? You try to show them greater affection, don’t you? Well, let’s begin by doing so. Wish the Mother of God, who is also our Mother, happy birthday. And our Lady, who is in heaven body and soul, will joyfully welcome our signs of affection.

Thus our Father began a meditation on this feast years ago. Following his advice, today in our prayer we congratulate our Mother holy Mary on the liturgical commemoration of her birth.

Many centuries had already passed since God had promised our first parents that he would send the Messiah. And hundreds of years had gone by since the hope of Israel, through Isaiah’s prophecy, had been centred on the virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us.’ Finally, as the Church joyfully sings, today the Blessed Virgin Mary was born from the line of David. Through her came salvation for all who believe; her glorious life filled the whole world with light.

Our Father said: You all recall reading Jesus’ genealogy, don’t you? Surely you will have realized that one finds listed there wonderful people but also sinners. We see clearly that our Lord’s ancestors, reaching down to Mary and Joseph, were made up of all kinds of people. The evangelists couldn’t write down everything they knew about Jesus, since they would have needed many volumes to exhaustively record his words and deeds. Nevertheless, among the scenes that they select, there are some that reflect badly on the apostles themselves. But all contain a lesson.

Let us once again consider Jesus’ genealogy. There we find men and women-ancestors of Joseph and Mary-who at times weren’t very exemplary. Surely the Mother of God wants us to realize that she, being all pure-Immaculate!-will accept us with our stains. When we draw close to Mary and Jesus, with a clean conscience, with an upright will, then nothing that has happened in the past matters. We can begin our life anew. And therefore throughout the day we have to rectify our intention many times.

I want us always to have this perspective in our struggle. We can never forget that in our interior life we have to fight without becoming discouraged. We can’t lose heart when we see the need, not once but many times, to rectify our course in our service to God. We have the duty to do so, whenever we haven’t been completely faithful in our struggle as dedicated souls.

Today we offer the Blessed Virgin the gift of our renewed interior struggle.

We have begun our meditation, my daughters and sons, by wishing our Lady happy birthday as her children, using our human heart when we address the Mother of God and our Mother. Humanly speaking, in wishing someone we love happy birthday, we usually offer some kind words and a gift, some tokens of affection or sacrifice. And you? What are you going to give our Lady today? Let’s see, my son. Glance back over the years that have passed. Is there anything there that you can give her? Is there some flower, some fragrance, some colour? Perhaps there isn’t much. Perhaps, in the garden of your soul, you find more thorns than flowers and fruits. It doesn’t matter. Now is the time to tell your Mother: This is all I can give you at the moment, but I will continue struggling, I will continue cultivating this garden. I will continue making one effort after another so that I can offer you a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers on the days the Church celebrates one of your feasts.

Then our attention is drawn to that big area that is not going well, that causes the barren field we see in our soul, or that permits thorns to thrive there. It is a good moment to ask for God’s forgiveness and for our blessed Mother’s help. It is a good moment to renew our petition to our Lady, asking that this forgiveness may be a pledge of the help she is going to grant us. And it is a good moment to make an act of contrition.

It is not a bad idea to begin the day with an act of contrition: mea culpa. It will blossom into a flower that we can offer to our Lady.

I advise you while you work, without doing anything strange, to have the custom of filling the day with acts of contrition. Perhaps on some days this is the best gift you can offer our Lady: my mother, for all the wretchedness in my life, tell our Lord ‘Never again.’ My mother, for so many weaknesses, tell our Lord ‘Never again.’ My mother, for so many foolish things that I do over the course of twenty-four hours each day, tell our Lord, ‘Never again.’ But Mother of mine, you also know how often I have made a resolution and then not been faithful to it, how often my remorse has come to nought!

My child, celebrate your Mother’s birthday with naturalness. Not as angels. You should have a lot of devotion to the angels, but it would be a disorder for you to want to be like them, since God has made us men. And since you are human, address the Blessed Virgin, love her, in a very human way.

Humanly speaking, when someone is wished happy birthday, that person wants to correspond. It seems daring for us to speak of correspondence on the part of the Blessed Virgin, on the part of one who is so generous, who is the Mother of God, the conduit for all the waters of grace that make the field of our life and apostolate fertile. But it would be a lack of naturalness for us not to be daring like this. Mother of ours, today we hope for your gifts. Today we will feel the gentleness of your hands, the warmth of your Most Sweet Heart, your protection for the whole Work. And despite the realization that we haven’t been good sons, we dare to say: monstra te esse matrem! Show us that you are our Mother. Make us be good sons. You who are the Mother of Fair Love, Seat of Wisdom, Handmaid of the Lord: Sancta Maria, filios tuos adiuva! I’ve repeated this aspiration to you so many times that it already forms part of our spiritual life. But repeat it especially today.

Our Mother in heaven lovingly accepts our small tokens of affection for her.

On earth a young girl born, the living temple of the celestial King. A young woman whose dazzling light darkens the rays of the sun itself… Who will not share in the celebration? Who will not bring pleasing gifts to the Virgin?

Following our Father’s advice, and in keeping with the Church’s living tradition, we have wanted to offer our Mother a token of affection, though only the gift of a poor, colourless flower, without fragrance. But she accepts it, she receives it affectionately because she is our Mother, and what a Mother!

We want to be like the child who comes up to his mother and, as proof of his affection, instead of offering her precious toys, which he doesn’t consider his own, puts his hand into his pocket and gives her what is of most value to him, his treasure: a spool without thread, a marble, a button, a smooth polished rock. Strangers may smile at the scene, but the mother’s heart is moved by her son’s childish ways. Mother of mine, we have given you everything we have, like the child who shows his great and pure love for his mother. And we also bring you our desires to be holy while we live here below.

We are small children of our Lady, in need of her constant care and protection. Therefore we turn to her trustingly, just as small children abandon themselves in their mother’s lap. Though we cannot present her with costly gifts, we can offer her the filial affection that wells up in our hearts. Our Father tells us: Now is the moment, perhaps, to hear in the depths of your heart some motherly indications, spoken with gentleness and not strong words: ‘The reason you don’t attain this, that and the other is because you don’t use the means, and not because I don’t protect you and gain graces for you.’ You and I sense her motherly reproach in the depths of our soul, in so many details that are the light and salt of our life, that give our life human grace, which I’m convinced is always united to divine grace.

In listening to these motherly reproaches, we are filled with sorrow and tell our Mother that we want to love her more, to serve God and our neighbour effectively. We promise her, not only to fulfill our norms, but to lovingly take care of the small details of prayer and mortification that form the fabric of our life.

My sons, just like mothers on earth, and even more so, our heavenly Mother is charmed to see that we do something for her, that we make an effort to please her like children. Our gift is our work done out of love for God and our mortification, our smile to make God’s path more attractive to souls, drawing very close to our Mother in heaven.

Let us end this time of prayer by congratulating our Lady once again and offering her, with a child’s simplicity, the small resolution we have made with God’s grace.