Birthday of Mary, the Mother of God The Nativity of Our Lady,
the Theotokos St. Andrew of Crete A reading used in the Roman
Catholic Office of Readings for the Feast of the Birthday or
nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known in the East as the
Theotokos, on September 8 -- Saint Andrew of Crete on the
nativity of Mary as a turning point in the old covenant becoming
the new, the frontier where types and symbols give way to
reality. This reading shows that September 8th was celebrated as
the birthday of Mary, the mother of Jesus at least as early as
the early 8th century. Though the new testament tells us nothing
about the birth of Mary, the nativity of Mary is recorded in the
Protoevangelion of St. James, a second century work that is not
part of the canon of Sacred Scripture. There we are told that
her parents were Saints Joachim and Ann. The traditional place
of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary is under the crusader
Church of St. Ann in Jerusalem where Joachim and Anna were
believed to have lived. The