The Bible does not tell us anything about the birth of Mary. Legendary material from the second century AD give us some details, for example that her parents were Joachim and Anne, but we do not know how reliable those sources are. The gospel text chosen for this day is the genealogy of Joseph, not Mary. What is interesting is that Matthew’s genealogy mentions five women: Tamar who seduced her father-in-law, Rahab who was a harlot, Ruth an unbeliever and foreign immigrant, Bathsheba who committed adultery and Mary, an unmarried, pregnant teen-ager. The lesson: we should not imagine that things in the past were any less messy and confusing that things are today. God is present in the real world, not in a vague ideal.
