Celebrating the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 Reflection at morning worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 8th September 2026

The Birth of Mary, by the Master of the Life of the Virgin, late C15th 

In our church calendar, today is the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The NT tells us absolutely nothing about Mary’s birth, not even who her parents were. Indeed, it tells us nothing at all about Mary before the angel announces that she will give birth to Jesus, and Mary responds in the words of the Magnificat we have just heard. However, one thing we can be sure of is that Mary was carried in her mother’s womb and born, just as every human baby is.

There was a tradition in the early church that her mother was called Anne and her father Joachim. The apocryphal Gospel of James, written towards the end of 2^nd century AD, seems to be the earliest mention of them. It is a kind of prequel to the canonical Gospels, telling the story of Mary’s family, childhood, education, and eventual betrothal to Joseph. St Jerome accused it of containing absurdities, and popes condemned it as untrustworthy in the 4^th and 5^th centuries AD, so it was excluded from the New Testament canon.

Pious Christians in the early church came to believe that the Son of God could not have been born of a woman tainted by original sin, which was believed to be transmitted through sexual intercourse. So they imagined that Mary must have been conceived of Anne by God’s action without the help of Joachim, in much the same way as Jesus was conceived of Mary.

The Gospel of James has this to say. Anne and Joachim are distressed to be childless, Joachim goes out into the wilderness to pray, leaving Anne by herself to lament not having a child. God hears Anne’s lament, angels announce she will give birth, and 7 months later Mary is born. Anne dedicates Mary to God, and at 3 years old she is sent to be brought up in the Temple. The story is clearly modelled on that of Hannah and Samuel in the 1^st Book of Samuel in the Old Testament.

While excluded from the NT, the apocryphal Gospel of James supported belief in the Immaculate Conception, that Mary was free from original sin from the moment of her conception. Since those times, some but not all Christians have continued to believe in Mary’s immaculate conception. The Eastern Orthodox Churches did not, but the medieval Western Church was divided, with Franciscan ‘Scotists’ in favour, and Dominican ‘Thomists’ against. After the Reformation, Protestant churches denied the Immaculate Conception, teaching that Mary was a sinner saved through grace like all believers, though some Anglo-Catholics hold it as an optional pious belief. As Marian devotion increased in the Roman Catholic Church in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, pressure increased for it to be believed as an article of faith, and in 1854 Pope Pius IX promulgated it as a dogma, something all Catholics must believe.

Now I myself do not believe in the Immaculate Conception. It is not supported by canonical scripture, and church traditions differ. But I think it would be ungracious to our RC brothers and sisters in Christ, who are required to believe it, to reject it as a heresy. Better by far to consider it a pious belief which Christians may choose to believe or not, rather than something that must divide us.

What matters, surely, is that we should all give Mary the honour due to her. She willingly accepted the responsibility of carrying Jesus in her womb. She gave birth to him, nurtured him as an infant and raised him to manhood. She stayed with him through his ministry, and finally she stood nearby at his crucifixion, as her heart was pierced with sorrow to see her beautiful child tortured to death.

It is surely right for us to celebrate her birthday today.