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In June 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile released its first spectacular images of the universe. What fascinated me was not only the images themselves, but how long they had taken to arrive. The project had been dreamed about for decades. Scientists designed enormous mirrors, built a camera weighing several tons, hauled equipment high into the Andes, calibrated instruments, corrected tiny errors, and waited. For years, there was tremendous work and almost nothing for the public to see.
Then one day, the images started appearing, filled with millions of stars and galaxies, and a look into the vastness of the universe. What looked like a sudden achievement was actually the visible result of years of invisible preparation.
That is perhaps a beautiful way to understand the day of Mary's birth. When Mary was born, apparently nothing happened. No angelic choir was reported over her house. No star appeared. No emperor lost sleep. Somewhere in an ordinary Jewish family, a baby girl was born, cried, needed feeding, and probably kept somebody awake at two in the morning. Even the grandmother may have looked at her and said what grandmothers have been saying ever since: “She is beautiful. Of course, she looks like our side of the family.”
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Celebrating Mary's Birth
And yet God was preparing Christmas. That is what makes this feast so profound. We normally celebrate people because of what they have accomplished. Every year on September 8, the Church celebrates Mary before she accomplished anything. The Church celebrates her at her birth. Before the Annunciation. Before Bethlehem. Before Cana. Before Calvary. Before her great “yes.” We celebrate simply because God had begun something in her that the world could not yet see.
Matthew’s genealogy makes exactly that point. Generation after generation passes. Abraham, David, exile, failures, saints, sinners, kings, and nobodies. At times, God’s promise must have seemed almost lost inside the mess of history. Prophet Micah speaks of Bethlehem, a place so small that few would have expected anything important from it. Yet God was quietly preparing his answer all along.
We are impatient with hidden seasons. We like progress we can measure. If we pray for three days, we would appreciate an email with at least a tracking number: “Your miracle has shipped and will arrive Tuesday.”
Nothing Ordinary with God
However, much of God’s greatest work happens beneath the surface. A parent may pray for a child for twenty years and see nothing. A marriage may begin healing through conversations nobody else notices. A person battling resentment may be changing slowly, almost invisibly. Someone may be sitting here thinking, “Nothing is happening in my life.”
But Mary’s Nativity says: Be careful what you call ‘nothing.’ The day Mary was born looked like an ordinary day. Heaven knew better. God was already preparing the woman through whom Christ would enter the world. There are seasons when God gives us fruit, and there are seasons when God grows roots. Roots are not exciting. Nobody takes photographs of them. But without them, nothing survives.
So today, if your life feels quiet, delayed, or unfinished, do not assume God has forgotten you. The Nativity of Mary reminds us that sometimes the holiest thing God is doing in our lives is the thing nobody can see yet.
- Today’s Readings
- Father Boby's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. Watch the entire Mass on the Family Rosary YouTube page.
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