Our Lady’s Message On Her Birthday

“Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways.  Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not.  Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.  For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.”

This message is provided for our meditation in today’s Epistle on our blessed Lady’s birthday.  It comes from the Book of Wisdom, the embodiment of which is traditionally recognized by the Church as the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Her message to us today comes in two parts, the first sentence being the introduction which is then followed by the main content.

Introduction:  Here we are asked to pause and make a commitment to do as our Lady exhorts us, and hearken unto her, hearing her instruction and finding the wisdom therein.  She instructs us that if we want to find eternal happiness and be “blessed,” we must keep her ways.  The way of humility, obedience, compassion, and submission always to the will of God must be ours if we are to achieve our heavenly goal.  Let us hear and follow then the instructions of our Mother, and blessed we shall truly be.

Content:  This is the actual message itself.  It is an exhortation to her children, to watch daily at her gates and wait at the posts of her doors, our Lady’s motherly way of asking that we honor her with our daily prayers and seek her intercession.  “Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession, was left unaided.”  But the symbolism of watching at her gates and waiting at the posts of her doors goes far deeper than this.  These gates and doors are like any other gates and doors, insofar as they are passageways from one place to another.  In this case, they are the Gate of Heaven and doorway to the House of God.

In this life we have followed our Lady on her long journey of Redemption.  We first follow her with our earthly joys and sorrows on the joyful road to Bethlehem and on the Via Dolorosa to Calvary.  Finally, we are given the chance to follow her through the Gate of Heaven and into the House of God forever.  Not only did our blessed Lady pass through that heaven’s gate at her Assumption, she now actually becomes for us that very Gate through whom we too may enter heaven.  Pervia caeli porta manes—“Thou dost remain the Gate of Heaven, through whom we pass” (Antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater).  If we watch daily at her gates and wait at her door, we are as close to heaven as we can be.  We stand not at a wall, but at a gate, a door, and when we are invited to pass through, heaven is right there on the other side.

And when we follow her into the House of God we will find the Blessed Queen of Heaven there.  After all, from the moment of her Fiat in Nazareth until she gave birth to the Christ Child in Bethlehem, our Lady was that House of God, the dwelling place and tabernacle of the Most High.  She remained with him all the way to the foot of the Cross.  We can never be lost if we follow our Lady, because she always leads us home to Christ.