I was never big into celebrating birthdays. We all have them, I thought, so it is not an accomplishment on our part but just another anniversary of coming into this world. But then I thought -- we do celebrate the nativity of Jesus, the nativity of His Mother Mary, and today we have a solemnity of the nativity of John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets. So, birthdays must be important in our culture, in our tradition, and in our religion. Why? For me now, the anniversary of my birthday reminds me that when I came to this world, I started out just like all those great and wonderful people. I came here without anything, just like John the Baptist, but I did have the opportunity of gaining everything -- to make life holy and dedicated to God. Today’s feast tells me that birthdays are important events to remember because a birth of a new person is always a celebration of life given to us by God and an opportunity to create from it something magnificent.
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