May God's peace and joy be with you today on this feast of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To help us enter into and celebrate the beauty and magnificence of this profoundly momentous day, I would like to share with you a reflection by Fr. John Paul Walker, O.P.

The Birth of Mary: A Lesson in God's Providential Love

Every year on September 8th the Church celebrates the glorious feast of the Birth of Mary. On this day we recall how Mary, conceived without sin by a singular grace of God, was born into the world from the womb of St. Ann. Yet this feast reveals more than just an important truth about the Blessed Virgin; it also reveals an important truth about the unfolding of God's plan of salvation and His providential love for His people.

From the moment our first parents, Adam and Eve, rejected God and plunged the world into sin, the Lord in His goodness had a plan to reconcile mankind back to Himself. Yet this reconciliation did not happen immediately; God's plan is never "rushed." Rather, piece by piece, God began to reveal through the prophets His love for His people and His desire for them to be reconciled. And then, "when the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman" (Gal 4:4) to be our Savior. Yet if the Son of God was to be born as man, it was necessary that the Christ child before His birth be contained in a fitting tabernacle-the womb of the Virgin Mary, who had been preserved from every stain of sin from the moment of her conception. God's plan for our salvation reached its fulfillment in the birth of Our Lord into our world and the Paschal mystery of His death and resurrection; the unfolding of that plan required, as a preliminary step, the birth of Mary into our world. At the time it happened, Mary's birth garnered no fanfare or special attention; it happened completely beneath the notice of the wider world. Yet her birth paved the way for another birth-one that would change the course of human history forever.

God also has a plan for each one of us. Like His plan to reconcile mankind with Himself, God's plan for our lives is not haphazard or rushed. It unfolds in a fitting manner through events both big and small. Often the unfolding of parts of God's plan for us, like the birth of Mary, goes unnoticed at the time; only later, when we look back at the events of our lives, can we see the handiwork of God in action. May this feast of the birth of Mary renew our trust in the providential love of God and in His plan for each one of us.

Fr. John Paul Walker, O.P. is in residence at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC while writing his dissertation for a Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelicum, in Rome. Before beginning his doctoral studies, he spent four years at Providence College where he served as an Assistant Chaplain in the Campus Ministry program and as an Instructor in the Department of Theology.