07 Sep 2010, 10:02 am

Birthday of Mother Mary
The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was celebrated at least by the sixth century, when St. Romanos the Melodist, an Eastern Christian who composed many of the hymns used in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies, composed a hymn for the feast. The feast spread to Rome in the seventh century, but it was a couple more centuries before it was celebrated throughout the West.
The source for the story of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal gospel written about A.D. 150. From it, we learn the names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, as well as the tradition that the couple was childless until an angel appeared to Anna and told her that she would conceive. (Many of the same details appear also in the later apocryphal Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.)
The traditional date of the feast, September 8, falls exactly nine months after the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Perhaps because of its close proximity to the feast of the Assumption of Mary, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not celebrated today with the same solemnity as the Immaculate Conception. It is, nonetheless, a very important feast, because it prepares the way for the birth of Christ.

03 Sep 2010, 10:41 am

A number of important doctrines concerning Mary are held by Christian churches. Primary among these is that, as mother of Jesus, she became Theotokos, literally, the "God-bearer", or "Mother of God". This doctrine was confirmed by the First Council of Ephesus in 431. Christians of the major ancient traditions including the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church believe that Mary lived a sinless life, offer prayers to God through Mary and venerate her as intercessor and mother of the church. Many Protestants, however, do not follow these devotions.

03 Sep 2010, 10:28 am

A number of important doctrines concerning Mary are held by Christian churches. Primary among these is that, as mother of Jesus, she became Theotokos, literally, the "God-bearer", or "Mother of God". This doctrine was confirmed by the First Council of Ephesus in 431. Christians of the major ancient traditions including the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church believe that Mary lived a sinless life, offer prayers to God through Mary and venerate her as intercessor and mother of the church. Many Protestants, however, do not follow these devotions.

02 Sep 2010, 9:17 am

May the holy Angels who are the messengers of our ever loving God protect you from all that are evil, guide you to walk along the steps of our Lord Jesus Christ, and make you manifest His presence in you to the humanity!

01 Sep 2010, 11:05 am

"He who stumbles on his way, no matter how little he moves forward, always gets somewhat closer to the end of his journey; but he who runs out of his way, the more he runs the farther he gets from the end of his trip" - St. Thomas Aquinas