Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary ---Feast Day Tuesday, October 11th
Feast Day - Tuesday, October 11th
This feast, which is observed throughout the Church on October 11th, honors the Blessed Virgin as Mother of God, and bears the same sort of relation to the Annunciation and Christmas as does the Synaxis of Our Lady in the Byzantine rite. The title "Mother of God" is a translation of the Latin title Dei Genetrix - which means "She Who Generated God," and as the corresponding Greek Title Θεοτόκος (Theotokos) means "She Who Gave Birth to God." This Title was dogmatically adopted at The First Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. as a way to assert that Jesus Christ is God, and that his Mother can therefore be called Mother of God.
In the first ages of the Church the day sacred to our Blessed Lady, under her great title of Mother of God, was January 1st. Evident traces of this devotion remain in the liturgy proper to the feast of the Circumcision, which is now kept on that day. Many churches having petitioned for a special festival in honor of Our Lady's Divine Maternity, a day usually in the month of October, was granted by the Holy See for its celebration. By a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites on April 24th, 1914, the eleventh of October was assigned. Plus IX later raised it to a double of the second class and extended it to the Universal Church.
All Catholics believe that Mary is the Mother of God. This does not mean that she is not a creature of God, nor that God did not exist before she was created. It means that He who was her Son was a Divine Person. In Christ there are two natures: the nature of God and the nature of man; but in Him there is only one Person, a Divine Person, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Hence all that may be predicated of either nature may with propriety be said of the Savior in the concrete form, without distinguishing the two natures. So we may say that God was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We then refer to the Person of the Son of God, Who is both God and Man. Christ, Who is God, was born according to His human nature of the Blessed Virgin. She is, therefore, truly the Mother of God. – The Roman Missal
“Let us not imagine that we obscure the glory of the Son by the great praise we lavish on the Mother; for the more she is honored, the greater is the glory of her Son. There can be no doubt that whatever we say in praise of the Mother gives equal praise to the Son.”
- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
“All true children of God have God for their Father and Mary for their Mother; anyone who does not have Mary for his Mother, does not have God for his Father. This is why the reprobate, such as heretics and schismatics, who hate, despise or even ignore the Blessed Virgin, do not have God for their Father though they arrogantly claim they have - because they do not have Mary for their Mother. Indeed if they had her for their Mother they would love and honor her as good and true children naturally love and honor the mother who gave them life.” - Saint Louis de Montfort
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