Birthdays are funny things when you think about them.
We make a fuss.
Cake.
Cards.
Candles.
Somebody produces a photograph which the person concerned would much rather had remained in the drawer.
And yet the real importance of a birthday is not simply that another year has passed.
It is that a person came into the world.
A life began.
And nobody looking at a newborn child can see everything that life will become.
You look at a baby and you cannot see the friendships.
The suffering.
The sacrifices.
The prayers.
The decisions.
The people whose lives will be changed because that child was born.
That is what makes the birthday of Our Lady so beautiful.
When Mary was born, there were no trumpets.
No crowds.
No one standing outside the house saying:
“This child will one day be called blessed by every generation.”
No one could see Bethlehem.
No one could see Cana.
No one could see Calvary.
No one could see Pentecost.
But God could.
Long before we notice anything, He is already preparing.
The first reading speaks of Bethlehem:
“You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.”
Too small.
God has a habit of beginning enormous things in unimpressive places.
Bethlehem is small.
Nazareth is obscure.
A stable is hardly royal accommodation.
A Cross looks like defeat.
And yet God is not troubled by small beginnings.
We are.
We like things that look successful from the start.
If something is not impressive by Tuesday, we begin wondering whether it is worth continuing.
God seems perfectly happy to spend centuries preparing something.
And the birth of Our Lady belongs to that hidden preparation.
Mary is not the Saviour. Christ is.
Mary does not redeem us. Christ does.
But God chose that the Redeemer would come to us through her.
The eternal Son would take real human flesh.
Not appear to be human.
Not simply dress Himself in humanity for thirty-three years.
He would truly become man.
And the humanity He takes comes from Mary.
That is why the Church dares to call her Mother of God.
Not because Mary is older than God.
Not because she is the source of His divinity.
But because the child she conceived and bore is one Person, Jesus Christ, true God and true man.
If someone asks: “Who did Mary give birth to?”
The answer is not: “A human nature.”
A mother does not give birth to a nature.
She gives birth to a person.
And the Person born of Mary is God the Son made flesh.
That title, Mother of God, is really a safeguard around the mystery of Christ.
The Church honours Mary because she refuses to divide her Son.
And before Mary ever carried Christ in her womb, God had already prepared her by grace.
This is where the Immaculate Conception belongs.
Mary needed salvation. Absolutely.
But she was saved in a unique way.
We are pulled from the pit.
She was preserved from falling into it. The same Christ saves us both.
In her case, the grace of the Cross reaches backwards, as it were, and preserves her from original sin from the first moment of her conception.
That is why her birthday is like the first light before sunrise.
The sun is not yet above the horizon.
But the darkness is already changing.
If you have ever been up early in the north of England in winter, you know the difference.
For a while everything is black.
Then there is that first thin light over the horizon.
Nothing dramatic.
No fanfare.
But once it appears, you know the night is losing.
Mary’s birth is like that.
Christ is the Sun.
But Mary is the dawn.
Her birth does not save the world.
But it announces that the Saviour is coming.
And there is something else rather beautiful here for a parish dedicated to Our Lady.
A patronal feast is not simply the annual day when we remember whose name is over the church door.
It is a family feast.
The Church is not merely the people we can see here.
The Church includes the saints in glory.
And a patron is not a decorative historical figure.
A patron prays for us.
A patron gives us an example.
A patron reminds a parish what it ought to become.
So what should a parish under Our Lady’s patronage look like?
It should receive Christ before it tries to give Him.
That is what Mary does.
She listens.
She receives the Word.
She gives her yes.
And then she carries Christ to others.
That is a good programme for any parish.
Not endlessly talking about ourselves.
Not trying to make the Church fashionable.
Not inventing a new Gospel every few years.
Receive what God gives.
Keep it faithfully.
Let Christ take flesh, so to speak, in the life of the parish.
And then carry Him to others.
Mary never makes herself the centre. That is one reason she is so central.
The more completely she belongs to God, the more beautiful she becomes.
Our world often tells us that freedom means keeping every option open.
Never belonging too much. Never committing too deeply.
Always keeping an escape route.
Mary shows something quite different.
She gives herself to God.
And instead of becoming smaller, her life becomes larger.
Because when a human life is completely given to God, God does great things with it.
We can make religion terribly complicated.
Mary makes the basic shape of holiness very clear:
Listen.
Believe.
Say yes.
Receive Christ.
Carry Him faithfully.
Stand by Him when it costs.
Remain with His Church.
That is holiness.
And perhaps that is why the birthday of Our Lady is such a hopeful feast.
A birthday is a beginning.
It reminds us that God can be preparing something long before we can see what it is.
There may be things in our own lives which still look small.
A prayer apparently unanswered.
A child or grandchild who has drifted from the faith.
A quiet act of faithfulness nobody notices.
A parish trying to grow in holiness one ordinary Sunday at a time.
We are often impatient.
God is not.
He knows what He is preparing.
No one looking at the infant Mary could see Bethlehem, Calvary or Pentecost.
God could.
So today we thank Him for the birth of Our Lady.
For the dawn before the sunrise.
For the woman prepared by grace to become the Mother of God.
And we ask her to pray for this parish:
that we may receive Christ faithfully,
that we may give Him to others without watering Him down,
that we may remain close to Him at the Cross,
and that everything we do may make not ourselves, but her Son, more clearly visible.
Because that is what Mary always does.
She never keeps the attention.
She simply says, in one way or another:
Look at Him.
And that is not a bad thing for a parish to learn from its patroness.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 