During September, Marian liturgical observances come in rapid succession. On September 8 we celebrate the Nativity of Mary. On the 12th, we have the Name of Mary. The day after the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, there falls on the 15th the second-class feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (a memorial only in the Novus Ordo calendar).
The birth of Mary was a turning point in salvation history. Early Christian writings suggest that Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anna, were childless for many years. Hence, Mary’s conception and birth hearken to Old Testament symbolism of special women who, having been barren or beyond childbearing, miraculously conceive: she was destined for something great. Mary was the first person ever to have been, through a singular grace from God, born entirely untouched by the stain of Original Sin. God prevented any macula of sin from being passed to her from her father. Hence, she was the perfect future immaculate mother of the Word Incarnate.
