Today we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The canon of scripture does not record Mary’s birth. The earliest known account of Mary’s birth is found in the Protoevangelium of James (5:2), an apocryphal text from the late second century, with her parents known as Saint Anne and Saint Joachim.

In the Church liturgical calendar, there are only three persons whose day of birth we commemorate, namely the Birth of Jesus, the birth of John the Baptist, and the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Generally, the Church celebrates saints’ feast days on the day of their death marking their entry into eternity. However, these three nativities are celebrated for the reason that these three alone were holy in their very birth.