On Monday of this week (8th September), we have the great joy of celebrating the Nativity or Birthday of Our Lady – the most beautiful, the most holy and the most humble creature to ever walk this earth. Her birth was a momentous event in history because it marked the dawn of our salvation. Although her birth went unnoticed by the world, the eyes of the Eternal Father looked down on this little child who had been preserved from Original Sin, and He saw the woman who would one day give flesh to His only begotten Son – our Lord and Saviour, JESUS Christ.

Mary’s birth into this world signalled that Satan’s days were numbered. In the first pages of Scripture, God promised the “woman” would crush the head of the serpent. “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heal” (Genesis 3:15). The woman is Mary and her seed is Christ. This is why Mary is often depicted crushing a serpent’s head. Although Christ is the Redeemer, God willed that victory over Satan would come about through Mary, just as the Incarnation itself (God becoming man) came about through Mary’s “fiat” or “yes” (Luke 1:38).

Satan hates Mary because she is everything he is not. He wanted to put himself above God, whereas Mary in her humility called herself “the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38). Satan, by virtue of his angelic nature is higher and far more intelligent than any human being, and yet she, having a lower nature (although higher by grace), defeats him and humiliates him. And because of her Immaculate Conception, he had no claim on her at all – she never committed a sin in her life – and that in itself is an eternal humiliation for him. And that’s why every time you pray the “Hail Mary” it is like a hammer blow to Satan’s head. So if you want to be close to JESUS, stay close to Mary. “To JESUS through Mary” St Louis de Montfort tells us. Love her, honour her, pray her Rosary every day, and she will lead you straight to her Son. She will teach you how to say “yes” to God just as she did.

Saying “yes” to God is to have a sense of mission. The Bishop in his pastoral letter last weekend said he wants all of us to be more missionary and outward looking. In other words, God has a plan for you and He wants saints for these times.

He wants courageous men and women who are not afraid to live their faith boldly, and who are not afraid to stand against the culture of death, despair and confusion in which we now find ourselves living. He wants men and women who are not afraid to bring Christ into a world that so desperately needs Him, because as Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) put it, “You either have Christ or chaos.” The world now is in total chaos and in desperate need of the redeeming truth of JESUS Christ and of the Catholic Faith. Only JESUS can save us.

So are you ready? God has a plan for you just as He had a plan for Mary, and her “yes” changed the course of history. Your “yes” can also change the lives of so many. The question is: will you give it?

Fr Paul Gillham, IC