Remembering Mama Mary on Her Birthday

We Catholics celebrate Mama Mary’s birthday every September 8, this is exactly nine months after her immaculate conception on December 8 which we also commemorate. There is nothing much said about the early life of Mary in the Scriptures, may it be her childhood or teenage life. But more or less we could imagine that she was an obedient child just like her obedience to God as she said yes during the Annunciation. She seems to be a caring and thoughtful child just like the way she cared for her cousin Elizabeth who had been pregnant with St. John whom she visited during her pregnancy. We can picture her doing ordinary tasks at home like helping her mother St. Anne do the chores. Moreover, we can say she was a good wife to St. Joseph and a loving mother to Jesus. These are just some of the qualities of Mama Mary of which worth emulating. So let’s celebrate her birthday, as we honor her not only as the mother of Jesus but as our mother too. We may give a feast on her behalf but more importantly we can reflect on her virtues as we live our lives and be like her.

Happy birthday dear Mama Mary!

Below is a prayer to Mary Immaculate that I’m sharing with you that was posted at catholicity.com:

Mary, Mother of God, your greatness began at the first instant of your existence with the privilege of your Immaculate Conception. After the Almighty God and the Sacred Humanity of Jesus, there is no being so great as you. It is true, you are a creature, and, therefore, far beneath the Supreme Being, but you are a creature so holy and so perfect that you are superior to all other creatures. God alone could make you so holy and so beautiful, and He did so to make you worthy of the dignity of being the Mother of Jesus, the Son of God, the Divine Word.

It was fitting that you, a Virgin Mother, should conceive the Man who was also the Son of God. It was fitting that you should be adorned with the greatest purity ever possible to a creature. You are the Virgin to whom God the Father decreed to give His only Son–the Divine Word, equal to Himself in all things–that entering the natural order He might become your Son as well as His. You are the immaculate virgin whom the Son Himself chose to make His Mother. You are the immaculate virgin whom the Holy Spirit willed to make His bride and in whom He would work the tremendous miracle of the Incarnation. The privilege of the Immaculate Conception was suitable to your dignity.

Mary, my immaculate Mother, help me to imitate your sinlessness by keeping my soul free from every willful sin by the faithful observance of God’s commandments. Help me to imitate your fullness of grace by receiving Holy Communion frequently, where I shall obtain the sanctifying grace that will make my soul holy and pleasing to God, and the actual graces I need to practice virtue. Through prayer may grace fill my soul with the life of God and transform me into a living image of Jesus, just as you were.

Father, you prepared the Virgin Mary to be the worthy Mother of your Son. You made it possible for her to share beforehand in the salvation of your Son, Jesus Christ, who would bring life by His death, and kept her without sin from the first moment of her conception. Give us the grace by her prayers ever to live in your presence without sin. We ask this through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Her [Mary’s] example of faithful perseverance in doing the will of God and her heavenly reward are a source of courage and hope for all of us.” – Pope Benedict XVI