By: Dr. Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano - @inquirerdotnetINQUIRER.NET U.S. Bureau / 09:00 AM December 24, 2019
A woman remains a virgin before and after giving birth – as the Christmas songs go: “The virgin Mary had a baby boy” (African American spirituals, since 1867) and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” I love Andrea Bocelli’s rendition of Adeste Fideles, which, BTW, has the following excerpts in English that mentions the virgin birth:
…True God of true God, Light from Light Eternal,
Lo, he shuns not the Virgin’s womb;
Son of the Father, begotten, not created… (Adeste Fideles)
Such belief is beyond the most famous Beatles, who had abandoned their Christian upbringing but came out with several Christmas albums in the 1960s. In 1965, after John Lennon (1940-1980) made a sarcastic remark that the Beatles had become “more popular than Jesus,” he became extra-careful to choose his Christmas songs, that is, without the mention of Jesus at all. The Beatles disbanded in 1970 but celebrated Christmas with friends, family, and fans every year without fail. Lennon sang “So This Is Christmas” but without acknowledging that the season reminds everyone of the birthday of Jesus.
Of course, global atheists say that “Christians don’t own Christmas” and prefer to teach their children the Johnny Mathis version of “Frosty the Snowman.” Of course, the increasingly secularizing and consumeristic “no-religion” generation annually enjoys “the most wonderful time of the year” and prefers more to sing Michael Bublé’s “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” than to admit that a virgin conceived and gave birth to the Son of God.
But the historical fact remains: The virgin birth of Jesus (see Wikipedia) happened 2,019 years ago and that singular event affected human history like no other. It means, even if the Beatles refused to sing “Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King,” Jesus so deeply marked the future of all humankind that the chronology of history is defined by His birthday, the undeniable landmark of which is the acronym BC and AD or Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord.
When the First Christmas happened in Bethlehem, Mary appeared to have had a husband, Joseph, for otherwise Mary would had been stoned to death. Since a pregnant virgin was unnatural or “beyond the ordinary,” and therefore socially unacceptable, Joseph played a silent, albeit important, role in God’s big plan. Yet, it is a breaking good news to those who believe, then and now: A woman remained a virgin before and after giving birth.
The Christian calendar
December 8 – Mary was conceived by St. Ann;
September 8 – Mary was born, exactly nine months after;
March 25 – Jesus was conceived by Mary without a biological father;
December 25 – Jesus was born, exactly nine months after.
Mariah Carey’s “O Holy Night… It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth” is one of my favorites as it narrates our dear Lord’s birth on December 25, which is exactly nine months after March 25, the day of the Annunciation, when He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It’s not a legend. It’s not a make-belief. Every normal child stays nine months in the womb before birth, right?
Our Lady’s birthday falls on September 8 having been conceived in the womb of St. Ann exactly nine months before, on December 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Drawing a parallelism, I venture to say that we cannot celebrate the Annunciation without celebrating the Immaculate Conception nor can we celebrate Christmas without celebrating the Nativity of Mary. Can a child be conceived and born without a mother?
At 12 noon at SM Malls, staff and some shoppers keep still for a while when the Angelus is prayed over the PA system. The Angelus is a perennial reminder of the Annunciation, also known as the Incarnation of the Son of God or Pagkakatawang Tao ng Anak ng Diyos, when the Son of God became the Son of Man in Mary’s womb.
Once in a while it’s nice to jog our memory of that special event in history when God’s love in the Flesh is closely linked to the personal decision of one woman set apart from all the rest. In the Angelus, when Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to Thy Word,” the virgin becomes pregnant! That, for me, is always a breaking news.
Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano (facebook.com/josemario.maximiano) is the author of MDXXI (1521): Ecclesia semper purificanda (Claretian, 2020) and 24 PLUS CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE: God Writing Straight with Twists and Turns (Claretian, 2019).
