marian anniversaries      september

September 8

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Catholic and Orthodox Churches

The Bible says nothing about Mary's birth, only that the angel found her living in Nazareth in Galilee. Traditions about her birth rely on the 2nd-century apocryphal book Protoevangelium of James, which makes her the miracle child of aging childless parents, Anna and Joachim, born "in the ninth month" in an unspecified location. It is thought that the feast of Mary's birth originated in Jerusalem in the 400s and was quickly adopted by the Syrian church. In 603 Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, confirmed the belief that Mary was born there near the Pool of Bethesda on the site of St. Anne's Church (and, presumably, following the Protoevangelium, later moved to Nazareth with her fiancé Joseph). The Nativity of the Virgin was celebrated in Rome and a few other places in the West in the 600s but did not become a major liturgical occasion in the Roman Catholic Church until the great Marian era of the 1200s. From then until 1955 the Nativity of Mary was preceded by a fast and celebrated for a week. Now,  although a simple feast and not a solemnity or day of obligation in most Catholic dioceses, September 8 is still the main commemoration day at many of the world's Marian shrines. Some Orthodox churches celebrate the Nativity of Mary on September 21, the modern date corresponding to September 8 in the Julian calendar.

In Domenico Ghirlandaio's 1490 fresco Birth of the Virgin (detail above) in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, St. Anne rests in bed while an attendant holds the newborn St. Mary and the donor's daughter looks on. The inscription on the wall above is from the antiphon for this feast: "Nativitas tua, Dei Genitrix Virgo, / Gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo" (Thy Nativity, O Virgin Mother of God, / Hath brought joy to the whole world).

Also celebrated this date (some of wide importance in bold):