Why We Read The Genealogy On This, Our Lady’s Birthday

On this Nativity of Our Lady, the Gospel is mostly the genealogy with which the New Testament begins. The genealogy of Saint Joseph. Our Lord’s stepfather. Why include that at all? Never mind read it today, of all days?

It has always been recognised as clearly stylised. Three kings are omitted, and Jechoniah is counted twice, in order to give 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian Captivity, and 14 from Babylon to the Nativity of Our Lord, 14 being the numerical value of the three Hebrew consonants for David.

Truly, the Messiah promised to and from the House of David is here, says the most Jewish of the Four Evangelists. Sacred Tradition has of course always affirmed that Mary was also of Davidic descent, as indeed have her defamers.

Be that as it may, it is notable that only four other women are mentioned in these 16 verses, and all produced sons who then took their place in the line despite not being the progeny of their mothers’ husbands. Either illegitimate, or legitimised by the levirate law, they become sons of Abraham and, in the last case, a prince of the House of David, his natural father whom he succeeds and arguably even surpasses.

Our Lady is the new Tamar, preventing the extinction of her people. Our Lady is the new Rahab, rescuing her people by her faith in the limitless power of God. Our Lady is the new Ruth, her Magnificat echoing Ruth's expression of gratitude to Boaz. Our Lady is the new Bathsheba, bringing forth the new Solomon, Whose wisdom is as infinite as His judgement is universal.

And in order to be so, she and her Child are placed under the protection of, as Saint Matthew calls him in the concluding verses of today’s Gospel, the “just man” who stands at the conclusion of those 42 generations of personally imperfect, but nevertheless continuous and strictly legal, patriarchy and monarchy.