By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
This is the fourth in a series of articles on our Lady in connection with some of the themes found in her major feasts and the Fatima message. This article is about her birthday, which is celebrated on September 8, the dogma of her Perpetual Virginity, and also about what happened at Fatima on September 13, 1917.
In some of the previous articles we looked at the reasons given by the Child Jesus to Sr. Lucia, when He appeared to her in May 1930, as to why it was necessary to have a communion of reparation on five Saturdays. She later explained that she had been given to understand that this related to the five main types of blasphemies and offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, one of which concerned those offending in some way against the principle of her virginity.
This is usually presented in the sense of her perpetual virginity, that is, not only was she virginal before the birth of Christ, but also during and after it. This privilege is very much connected with her exalted dignity as Mother of God, and indeed enhances it greatly.
This belief is a dogma of the Church, and was defined by Pope Martin I at the Lateran Council in the year 649, as follows:
“If anyone does not, in accord with the Holy Fathers, acknowledge the holy and ever virgin and immaculate Mary as really and truly the Mother of God, in as much as she, in the fullness of time and without human seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit God the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of her integrity, brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned.”
We find scriptural backing for this belief in St. Matthew’s Gospel (1:18-25), where the text explicitly says that Mary was with child by the Holy Spirit. This passage also quotes the well-known prophetic saying from Isaiah, which, according to Catholic tradition, and as rendered in the Douay Rheims version of the Bible, says:
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
As St. Matthew points out, the word Emmanuel means, “God with us,” which indicates the prophet was referring to Christ, the Incarnate God.
So here we have a prophetic affirmation, in a passage which has traditionally been seen as being Messianic — that is as concerned with the coming into the world of Christ, the Messiah — and which sees the Mother of the prophesied child as being a virgin.
The birth of Christ, too, has been seen as miraculous. Many of the Church fathers identified our Lady with the Eastern gate of the New Temple as seen by the Prophet Ezekiel. In the biblical text, this gate was always to be kept shut after the passage through it of the Lord:
“Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces east; and it was shut. And he said to me, ‘This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it; for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut’” (Ezek. 44:1-2).
The fathers saw this as symbolic of Mary’s continuing and perpetual virginity after the birth of Christ.
It’s understandable then, that blasphemies and offenses against this dogma are very painful to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and hence why there is a need for reparation for them.
Regarding the Feast of Our Lady’s birthday, usually the feast day of any saint is determined by the date of his or her death. There are only three exceptions to this: the birthday feasts of St. John the Baptist, our Lord, and the Blessed Virgin, whose birthday is celebrated on September 8.
The New Testament says nothing about this event, but it is explicitly mentioned in some of the apocryphal writings, including the Protoevangelium (“First Gospel”) of James. Apocryphal writings are works which are not included in the Bible, but are considered, in some cases, to include genuine material, particularly when this material is found in the liturgy. Some of them were read in church, and were regarded as containing edifying material, but the Church refused to put its definitive seal of approval on them. It is worth noting that this work also asserts a belief in the perpetual virginity of our Lady.
We do not find any reference to this feast until around the seventh century, at which point in the East, St. John Damascene composed a homily for the Feast of Mary’s Nativity. In the West. Pope St. Sergius I (687-701) prescribed that a solemn procession to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome should be held on specified feasts of Mary, including her Nativity.
From that point on, it gradually became more widely celebrated in the West, so that by the time of Pope Innocent IV, in 1241, it was regarded as a major feast in the Church. It is observed in both East and West on 8 September 8 because this date is nine months after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which occurs on 8 December 8.
The Miracle Of The Sun
Regarding the events at Fatima on September 13, 1917, in her memoirs Sr. Lucia tells us that as she and her cousins made their way to the Cova da Iria that day they were surrounded by huge crowds. When they arrived, they began to say the rosary with the people, and then, shortly afterward, they saw a flash of light; then our Lady appeared on the small holm oak tree.
She said, “Continue to pray the rosary in order to obtain the end of the war. In October our Lord will come, as well as Our Lady of Dolors and Our Lady of Carmel. St. Joseph will appear with the Child Jesus to bless the world.”
This saying referred to what the three children would see the following month, that is, visions indicating the mysteries of the rosary, while everyone else was experiencing the awesome miracle of the sun.
Our Lady then went on to say: “God is pleased with your sacrifices. He does not want you to sleep with the rope on, but only to wear it during the daytime.”
This was a reference to a piece of old rope they had found on the road and which they had cut up and then tightly bound around their waists. This was so painful that they had difficulty in sleeping and so the Blessed Virgin intervened to modify their spirit of penance.
Lucia then began to put forward petitions for cures, to be told: “Yes, I will cure some, but not others. In October I will perform a miracle so that all may believe.”
After she said this, our Lady began to rise from the holm oak tree and then disappeared; and so the scene was set for the tremendous miracle of the sun the following month.
We are left with an overall message emphasizing the importance of celebrating and understanding the major Marian feasts and dogmas, and also stressing the importance of the rosary and a prudent spirit of penance in our lives.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published later this year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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