Homilies Preached by Father Altier on the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today we celebrate a most beautiful feast: the Feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the Church's calendar there are only three times in the year that we celebrate anyone's birthday; that is, the three people that were born without original sin: Jesus Himself, Saint John the Baptist, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Jesus, of course, is God, so He had no sin. Saint John the Baptist was freed from sin at the moment of the Visitation when he leapt in his mother's womb upon hearing the words of Our Blessed Lady. At that moment, Our Lord removed original sin from his soul. He had been conceived with sin, but was born without. And, of course, now our Blessed Lady, who was conceived without original sin and, consequently, born without original sin. For not even one instant of her entire being did Satan have any dominion over her.

As we heard in the first reading today: "Those whom God foreknew He predestined, and those whom He predestined He also justified." The Greek word for justified means "to make righteous" - and to be righteous is to be in the state of grace. Even from Old Testament times, God justified or "made people righteous." He was able to forgive their sins. They did not have the means of the forgiveness of sin that we have today, but God is way beyond anything we can place upon Him and even in this situation, prior to Our Lord's coming into the world, we see that salvation has already begun.

Conceived Without Sin

Saturday September 8, 2001

Birth of the Virgin Mary

Reading (Romans 8:28-30)

Gospel (St. Matthew 1:1-23)

This homily was given at a Poor Clare Monastery in Central Minnesota

We can only imagine the rejoicing of the angels in Heaven, as they see that the mother of the Redeemer of the world is born. They knew that what had been awaited from the very beginning of creation was now finally beginning to unfold. We see the rejoicing of the angels in Scripture at Our Lord's birth, but there must have been great rejoicing also at Our Lady's birth because here, for the angels, was a little tiny baby girl who was more holy than they, who was higher than they, and who was predestined by God to be the mother of His own Son.

God had chosen her, as He did with the other women who were listed in the genealogy of Our Lord that we heard in the beginning of Saint Matthew's Gospel. We do not always understand the importance of these genealogies, but for the Jewish people this was the most important part of Scripture. Who was it that came before you? What is the family line? How can we know who this person is? In this, we hear all about who the father of So-and-so was.

But four times we hear about women, and each one of these women are in there because they are not ordinary; they are extraordinary circumstances, not always necessarily the best of women. For instance, we hear about King Solomon having Bathsheeba as his mother. Well, Bathsheeba was the woman who committed adultery with King David. We also hear about Rahab. Rahab, remember, was the prostitute from Jericho who saved the two spies; then, when they destroyed Jericho, they saved her. Ruth was not a Jew, she was a Moabite woman, who then converted to Judaism. Her mother-in-law was Naomi. These different women are included because they are not the "ordinary woman" - they are not the upright, upstanding Jewish woman that one might expect. Yet, we see that God chose them from all the other women to be part of the genealogy: the family history of our Blessed Lord. Take all these women, who would be considered great sinners that God had justified, and then take the one who is without sin, who is justified from the very first instant of her being and place her name with the other women.

And so, above all the people, we hear about Abraham; we hear about David; we hear about Saint Joseph - all these holy men. They all pale in comparison to the little baby who was born this day. As we consider all the things God has done throughout history, we realize that He predestined Our Lady from all eternity. We must understand that God chose her. He knew from all eternity that He was going to create her, and that He was going to create her without sin. From all eternity, He knew that He was going to send His Son into the world and that He was going to be born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In Our Blessed Lady, from the first instant of her creation, and now in her birth, God had created a fitting home, a fitting place for the beginning of the life of Our Blessed Lord. He had created a heart without sin, a heart that from the first beat, from the first instant was absolutely in love with God - so perfectly in love with God that God could make Himself in her image as she was made in His. We begin to see already why the angels would be rejoicing; why all the saints, who at this point had not been able to enter into Heaven, but who awaited the day that God would come into the world as the Messiah, would be rejoicing because of the birth of this little girl.

Today, also, we reflect upon our own selves as we think about our spiritual mother. God sent her into the world so that we, too, could have life through her Son. As we consider all these things that we spoke of about Our Lady: that God foreknew her, predestined her, justified her, and, indeed, has glorified her, we can say the same of ourselves. From all eternity, God knew that He would create each one of us, that He would make us members of His Son through Baptism, that we would become spiritual children of Our Lady, that - through the waters of Baptism and through Confession, if we have fallen thereafter - He would justify us, and that His Will and His desire is to glorify us for eternity. That, of course, requires our cooperation.

We look to Our Lady and we rejoice in her birth. We ask today for her intercession that, as we celebrate our own mother's birthday, she too will pray for us that we will be able to rejoice with her as we enter into birth in Heaven, into a new and glorified life that God has already brought Our Lady into and that He holds out for us. As long as we remain faithful to Our Blessed Lady and to her Son, we too will be justified and, in turn, be glorified.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

With Our Lady, Let Us Give Glory to God

September 8, 2003

Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Reading (Romans 8:28-30)

Gospel (St. Matthew 1:18-23)

We celebrate today the glorious feast of the Virgin Mary. We first of all reflect upon the rejoicing that there must have been in Heaven when finally there was a human person who was without Original Sin, a human person who loved God absolutely and perfectly as much as she possibly could at every single instant of her life. Even as a child in the womb, to the fullness of her ability as a child in the womb, she loved God completely. And at every instant, with every beat of her heart, she loved God more. Yet at the same time, as we look at that and reflect upon the glory of the feast, we also hear what Saint Paul says, “Those He predestined He also called; and those He called He also justified; and those He justified He also glorified.” And so on one level we could say that God, on the birth of our Blessed Lady, had in earnest begun the work of salvation because now the woman who would give birth to the Messiah, the woman who would be the perfect human being, the one who would be able to show everyone else how they are to live was now in the world. The angels and the saints rejoiced.

Yet, at the same time, we can see that God for centuries had already been working on this whole notion of salvation. From the first moment that Adam and Eve fell, God was right there to promise a Redeemer. And the promise of a Redeemer had one other point that was promised with it, that is, there would be a woman who would be intimately involved and that woman would crush the head of the serpent. So right from the very beginning not only did God promise this would be the case, but He began working with humanity to try to lead us toward that salvation.

Now when we hear in the Gospel reading that genealogy of Our Lord, we see some of the most abominable characters that ever lived in the history of Israel. Yet this was precisely the way God chose to prepare the people of Israel for the Messiah – in a hidden way, in an unexpected way. Who would expect with a cast of characters like these that the Messiah could possibly come from any of that? And yet, when we just simply look at Our Lady, it was once again in a hidden way and in an unexpected way that God chose to bring the Messiah into the world. Who would have expected that there would be a woman without sin? And a woman who is the most humble of all the creatures that God ever created? It is in these unexpected ways that God will work so that we have to have faith. If God were doing things with bells and whistles and neon signs flashing, it would not require much faith. But He asks that we would have that faith. That is why every time the demons would try to speak He would silence them. That is why He would tell the people not to tell anybody the things He had done for them and the miracles He had worked – because they needed faith. It is why He called Himself the “Son of Man” rather than calling Himself the “Son of God” – because we had to have faith.

So as we celebrate today this glorious feast of Our Lady, it is the same thing. All that we would see on the natural human level is a beautiful baby girl. No one would be able to look at her and say that she does not have Original Sin. She did not glow in the dark. She was not doing extraordinary things from the time she was born. But like her Son she lived a very ordinary life in the most extraordinary manner, in complete union with God in the seclusion of her heart. Now obviously some of that would come out, just as it did with Jesus; but the fact of the matter is that what most people would have seen is just a normal little girl. God had hidden everything from the eyes of most of the people so they had to have faith, they had to trust in God, and they would have to see in the example of our Blessed Lady (now also in the example of our Blessed Lord) the way that God would also work in our lives: in a hidden and unexpected manner.

For us it is a little different; it is not just all of humanity that would not be expecting, but it is we ourselves who would not be expecting any of the things that God is doing. And that is good. But we have to have faith, and we have to cooperate with the Lord in the work He has begun in each one of us because He has also called each one of us, which means that He has predestined us, which means that He has justified us, which means that He has glorified us according to the very words of Saint Paul in Sacred Scripture that we heard in the first reading. We want to fight against that. Our Lady did not fight against what God was doing in her. Our Lord certainly did not fight against what God was doing in Him. It is time we stop to realize that God chooses to work with a very unlikely cast of characters, and that He chooses to work in ways that are hidden and unexpected. So rather than telling God, “This just cannot be. How could it be possible?” instead it is time we accept that we now are this very unlikely cast of characters that God has chosen to work with. We need to cooperate with Him so that we can be justified in Christ and we can be glorified in Christ, and now and for eternity we can join Our Lady in giving greater glory to God.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Wednesday September 8, 2004

Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Reading (Romans 8:28-30)

Gospel (St. Matthew 1:1-23)

In the first reading today from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul says to us: All of those whom God predestined He also called; and those He called He also justified; and those He justified He also glorified. Now we put that in the context of the Gospel reading today. We see the genealogy of Our Lord going all the way back to Abraham. In this we know also that God had promised all the way from the time of Israel (Jacob, whose son was Judah) that it was from him that the Messiah was going to be born. This went back many, many generations and yet in God’s foreknowledge and in His providence He knew exactly which tribe it was that was going to bring forth the Messiah, and therefore the mother of the Messiah. He foreknew and foretold just exactly how this was going to be. We see then in the Gospel reading all of these different people who are involved in the genealogy of our blessed Lord and we realize, as we celebrate the birth of Our Lady, that from before time began God knew He was going to create the most perfect human person, exactly who she was going to be, and the purpose for that creation. He sent her into the world in the fullness of time, as Saint Paul would say to the Galatians: when everything had been prepared according to God’s foreknowledge.

Now this is something important for us because it means that God also from all eternity knew He was going to create us. He knew He was going to put us in the world precisely at this time and for His own purpose. We are not just some random thing that occurred. It is not merely by the will of our own parents that we are here, but it is by the Will of God. And He knew from all eternity that He was going to create you exactly on the day that He did. That tells you that you are here because God wants you here. It is not a mistake that you are here, but rather it is God’s foreknowledge, His providence. He has called you to Himself. Now we might look at this and say, “Well, of course He would tell us about Our Lord and Our Lady because they’re the most important people that ever lived.” But what is true of them is also true of you.

So as we celebrate the birth of the Blessed Mother today, the only human person ever to be conceived without Original Sin, the only human person ever to live the way that God intended for us to live, we rejoice. We rejoice heartily today because our salvation has begun. We celebrate the beginning in a very specific way of what God’s intention was. You see in the Gospel that in all this genealogy God’s intention carried all the way back and we can see how it worked. Salvation began, of course, with Adam and Eve, with the promise God made that there would be a Messiah and that He was going to be born of a woman, and that woman was going to crush the head of the serpent. So today as we celebrate Our Lady’s birthday, we look back a couple of thousand years; it was a day of great anguish for Satan and all of his minions because he knew that this most humble of all human persons ever to be born was also going to be the one that he would have to reckon with and the one that he would not be able to overcome.

Into our world filled with darkness and sin, a world 2,000 years ago in Palestine that was not living according to God’s way, a world that had very much gone astray, in the midst of the darkness the dawn suddenly appeared and the light began to shine and there was hope. That same dawn continues to rise through every age because the dawn is our Blessed Lady, the light shining through the darkness. She is the Morning Star. She is the one who shines in the darkness. The fathers of the Church would say that Jesus is the sun and Our Lady is the moon reflecting His light. But the moon shines in the darkness. So in the darkness of our hearts, in the darkness of our world, we have this glorious light shining to help us along the way, to give us hope, to give us confidence. Knowing that just as she was called and predestined by God and justified, so are we – not in the same way, obviously, because she is without sin. She is the only one who did it right and did it perfectly, but she is our mother. What a wonderful thing for us to be able to rejoice with all the angels, to be able to rejoice with the Most Holy Trinity that the one perfect creature God was going to make had now come into this world. As Saint John says of Jesus, The Light came into the darkness and the darkness was not able to overcome it, this is the dawn that precedes the sunrise, the dawn that broke through the darkness. And the darkness of Satan and all of his lies was not able to overcome her either. So as long as we remain close to her we will remain in the light. In the darkness of our world and the darkness of our own sinfulness, she continues to reflect the light of her Son, she continues to be the one that God sends to give us hope, to give us confidence and encouragement, in that beautiful soft maternal way to call us back to her Son and give us the confidence to continue to live the life. As she lived it perfectly in the midst of all the sin in the world at that time, we too can have the confidence that being with her we can live our lives according to God’s Will. In the midst of this world gone astray, we, like her, will be able to shine like a light in the darkness reflecting the glory of Jesus Christ in our hearts and in our lives.

So today, as we celebrate her birth into this world, with all of the angels and saints we rejoice. And as my own mother used to say every year when we would ask, “Mom, what do you want for your birthday?” she would say, “Good kids.” Well, let us give Our Lady that birthday present. Let us be the best of children living without sin, imitating our mother, and giving greater glory to her Son.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

Thursday September 8, 2005

Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Reading (Micah 5:1-4a)

Gospel (St. Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23)

As we celebrate today our Blessed Lady’s birth, there are a few things we need to keep in mind. Recall, first, that there are only three birthdays the Church celebrates, that of Our Lord, Saint John the Baptist, and today, of course, our Blessed Lady. These are the three persons who were born without Original Sin: Jesus, being God, never touched by sin in the least; Saint John the Baptist, having sin removed at the moment of the Visitation when he leapt with joy in his mother’s womb (so conceived with sin, but having sin removed in the womb); and Our Blessed Lady, being immaculately conceived so that never even for a split second was there any sin on our Blessed Lady’s soul. Being born into the world in a hidden, quiet manner unlike that of Saint John the Baptist where the people were talking about what this child was to be, she was born hidden. People did not know, but here the highest, most perfect creature that God had made was brought into the world and with her salvation began.

We can see in the Gospel in the genealogy the way God had been working throughout salvation history through the Hebrew people, all the way through the genealogy of our Blessed Lord. But in a very specific and particular way it was with Our Lady’s birth that the work of salvation had begun in a very practical way. Our Lady, then, is known as the dawn. That is, the way that the sky becomes bright even before the sun rises, Jesus being the Sun, Our Lady then being the dawn that announces the fact that the Sun is going to be coming very soon. We hear, for instance, in the first reading, the prophecy from the prophet Micah about Bethlehem Ephrathah being too small to be among the clans of Judah and yet it is from that particular little town that One is going to be raised up Who is going to be the Savior of the world. Just like Our Lady, the one who is the smallest, the one who is the most humble, the one who is completely hidden, it is from her that the Son of God was born into this world, that the savior came into this world through the one whom God had chosen specifically for this task.

It is from her, then, that we also need to learn what we have to do, to strive for humility, to strive to be hidden. But it is also this pattern that we see how Our Lady is born obviously before Our Lord in order for Our Lord to be born through her. This is the reason Saint Louis de Montfort would say that before the Second Coming of Christ, the coming of Our Lady’s kingdom has to be established; that just as Our Lady came first, so now the fullness of the knowledge of Our Lady and the establishment of the kingdom of Our Blessed Lady is going to be established before the Second Coming, because in the first coming of Christ and in the first coming of Our Lady, Our Blessed Mother was completely hidden, but in the Second Coming, our Blessed Lady is going to be completely known, completely honored the way that she deserves to be honored.

That is the joy that is ours, to be able to be part of ushering in this time. I have mentioned to you many times that this is the time Our Lord has given over to His mother. This is the Blessed Mother’s time. As yet, the fullness of her kingdom is not established, but that is what we are working toward, that is what Satan is so desperately trying to destroy and so desperately trying to make sure does not occur because he knows fully well that once the kingdom of Our Lady is established he has no power. None. This humble, beautiful woman has crushed his vile and despicable head, and through the humble children who will recognize the glory and honor of their mother, his head is once again going to be crushed through faith, through charity, through humility, the very things that Our Lady was known for. And those who will honor her appropriately will be known in the same way. That is the glory which we all have the possibility to share in if we will make that choice.

We look at these various points and we see how it is all coming together. The One Who is from ancient times, as we see the genealogy (but even there, of course, Our Lord goes before that), but how Our Lady fits perfectly into that. Now, throughout history, once again, we come to this point where there is the birth of Our Lady’s kingdom, and it is that for which we are in travail today. That is what we are awaiting. So we can pray and we can seek to usher in the glory of our Blessed Lady’s kingdom because it is through that that the glory of Our Lord’s kingdom, the Second Coming, is going to be brought forth. Our Lady has to be here first, the dawn that is going to bring the Sun, the dawn that announces the rising of the Sun. If we want to be prepared for the coming of the Son of God whenever it is that He should come, we first have to be watching for the dawn, to be awake, to be alert, and to be prepared. That is exactly what our Mother will do for us. But, in the meantime, we look to her and we ask her to form us as she formed Him so that we will be in the perfect image of Christ, so that we, following the example of Jesus, will be perfectly devoted to our Blessed Mother, that we will honor her and love her as she deserves to be loved and honored. In that way, in our hearts the kingdom of Our Lady will already be established as the world prepares to have her kingdom firmly established. And we will be prepared, as one day the world will be, for the blessed and glorious coming of Our Lord prefigured and preceded by the glorious coming of His mother.

*This text was transcribed from the audio recording with minimal editing.

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