Daily Gospel Reflection
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September 8, 2025
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When my Catholic father and Jewish mother married, they agreed to raise their children in the Catholic faith. My mother’s childhood best friend was Catholic, familiarizing her with Mass and other Catholic traditions. She had always been interested in the person of Jesus, claiming that the movie Jesus Christ Superstar piqued her interest in a figure who was otherwise foreign to her understanding.
After nearly eight years of marriage, my parents were unable to conceive a baby. During a business trip, my mother happened upon a shrine of Mary. Curious, my Jewish mother offered a prayer, asking for the Blessed Mother’s intercession in conceiving a child. A few months later, my parents found out they were expecting me. After my birth, my mother became Catholic.
Today, we celebrate the birth of Mary with a gospel story about the birth of Jesus. Although Mary’s birth is not documented in the gospels, our celebration on this day of her role as the Mother of God illuminates the role of Mary in our lives. When we turn to Mary—in prayer at the Grotto, with flowers at weddings or Marian Masses in the month of May, or even through a simple Hail Mary—we are asking her to point us to her Son. In calling upon Mary, we are calling upon her Son, through her.
We are reminded in today’s passage, as we are reminded many times throughout the gospels, “Do not be afraid.” Throughout her life, Mary trusted in these words of God, allowing herself to replace doubt and uncertainty with faith. May we give thanks for Mary’s earthly vocation of bringing Jesus to us, and may we have the faith to turn to her in her heavenly vocation of bringing us to Jesus.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, the angel assured the loyal and faithful Joseph that the mother-to-be and her child, placed in his loving care, are our salvation. We thank you for the gift of your Son, of Our Blessed Mother, and of Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse. We ask only that we can share in some way the love, respect, and faith of the Holy Family. This we ask through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Today, we remember the birth date of the one honored as the “God-bearer.”
Mary’s birth was the first realization of the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. She was born without sin, pure and holy—“full of grace”—to prepare her to bear God’s Son to the world.
Among the saints, only Mary and St. John the Baptist have commemorations on the dates of their births and their deaths (or assumption to heaven, in Mary’s case). These two, above all other saints, heralded and participated in the arrival of our savior.
The birthplace of Mary is not known for certain. One ancient tradition holds that she was born in Nazareth. Another tradition states that she was born in Jerusalem in a neighborhood near the pool of Bethesda. Today there is a church in that neighborhood dedicated to St. Anne, Mary’s mother, and a crypt under that church designates a spot where Mary is believed to have been born. View images from that church in this part of our virtual pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
In the account of the first sin in Genesis, Eve was led astray by the figure of the serpent. Immediately upon discovering their sin, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel” (Gen 3:15).
Because the offspring of the woman lethally strikes at the serpent’s head, this passage is allegorically understood as the final triumph of good over evil. Here is the first promise of a redeemer for fallen humanity, Jesus, and the passage notes he is born of woman, Mary. With her obedience, Mary reverses Eve’s disobedience and brings life to the world through her Son, Jesus.
When Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., arrived at a missionary outpost on the American frontier in northern Indiana in November of 1842, he saw a frozen lake covered in snow. The purity of the scene reminded him of Mary, and he named the university he founded after Our Lady of the Lake: the University of Notre Dame du Lac.
Images of Mary abound on campus, including a depiction of her birth in the mural shown above from the Basilica. Of course, she also appears atop the golden-domed Main Building, where she stands 19 feet high and weighs 4,000 pounds. Relics of Mary, including pieces of her clothes and hair, rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
Mary, Our Lady of the Lake, your obedience reversed Eve’s disobedience and brought life to the world—pray for us!