SOLEMNITY OF THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
MARY
IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER IN THE GARDEN OF THE CHURCH
In the
first place I will comment on the feast of the Immaculate Conception and afterwards
on the gospel.
EXPLANATION
OF THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
We are in
this Time of Advent, a time of preparation for the great celebration of
Christmas, and the Church, being a great pedagogue, puts before our
consideration the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, one of the nicest and most
attractive celebrations of all the liturgical year.
The
readings of today’s mass take us to the beginning of the creation of the world,
with the sin of Adam and Eve; the sin that we call “original”… The Mother of
God did not have the sin of our first parents, with which we are all born, and
which is erased with baptism.
But the
Church does not want us to pay attention to sin, but to the privilege of the
Immaculate Conception.
We can
ask ourselves: what this privilege, which we celebrate today, consists in? I
will say it with the same words of Pope Pius IX, when he declared the
Immaculate Conception a dogma of faith. Pay attention and listen to these words:
The most Blessed
Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace
and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ,
Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin (C.C. nº491).
Let us briefly
explain these words. The Mother of God, like every creature, should have the
original sin, like me and you who are listening, once had. The Psalmist says: True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as
my mother conceived me (Ps 50:7). But, All-powerful God (nothing is impossible for God), granted
to the Virgin Mary, as a special favour, the grace to be conceived without original
sin, by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ.
Let us
put a comparison. When the construction of a building is entrusted to an
architect, he considers what the building is going to be used for, and he
anticipates the services that must be installed: light, telephone, television
sets, Internet, etc.
Likewise,
God on casting our parents away from
When the fullness
of time came, God sent the Archangel Gabriel to a virgin, very holy and immaculate,
and proposed to her to be the mother of Jesus.
God has a great respect for people, for that reason he sent a messenger
to know if Mary accepted or not to be the Mother of God. She gave her
objections, since she did not know man, and on knowing that she would conceive
by the grace of the Holy Spirit, she responded with these admirable words: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May
it be done to me according to your word (Lk
This is
why we have come today to Church, to say to Mary that she is the Immaculate
Conception. The Virgin Mother. And for this reason we
call her blessed: Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God
(Mt 5:8).
Mary is
blessed:
- Because of the privilege
of the Immaculate Conception.
- Because she said yes to
the
- Because she is also our
mother, since Jesus, on the Cross, gave her to us as our mother, in the
person of
- Because we too, like her
(as we have read in the second reading) were chosen by God, in the person of Christ, before the creation of the
world, to be holy and without blemish before Him, in love (see Eph 1:4).
Mary is holy
because of her great faith and because she has always fulfilled the will of
God, as Saint Agustin says: Mary more blessed for having received the faith
of Christ, than for having conceived the flesh of Christ (Virg. 3).
We would
never finish speaking of the Virgin Mary, because good children like to speak about
their mothers. But I hope that these brief words are sufficient to increase our
devotion to the Mother of God and to transmit it to others.
A
comparison: A thousand extinguished candles, cannot light a single candle. A lit
candle, however, can light a thousand candles. The Mother of God,
has been this lit candle which has given light to a thousand candles which were
extinguished in the love for Jesus. Let us be this lit candle that lights a thousand
candles in the love for our Mother Mary.
EXPLANATION
OF TODAY’S GOSPEL
Christmas
is close. On Christmas, I will say to you: Let us go to
We go to
Mary
opens the door to us. We say to her that we are not journalists but men and
women full of faith and love for God.
Mary, a
young, preatty, immaculate girl, and with a smile on
her face, kindly asks us to take a seat. And, without us saying anything, she already
knows why we have come.
IN
MARY’S HOUSE
Conversation
of Mary with the Angel
Mary tells
us: I was in prayer, and an Angel of the Lord appeared to me, one of the
main angels, Archangel Gabriel. I was scared, I had never seen an angel, and he
said to me: Be not afraid, Mary, rejoice, because I bring a message from God to
you.
We ask
her for the reasons for this joy, and she responds that the reasons are many.
Let us
start from the beginning, says Mary. The angel said to me that I was full of
grace and that the Lord was with me. This made me feel better. The angel continued
by saying to me that God had given me his grace: “You will bear a son and you shall
name him Jesus”.
The
angel described to me how this son would be, by saying: He will be great and will be called Son of the Most
High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he
will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no
end.
Mary
continues telling us: I did not understand anything the angel said about
having a son, since I didn’t known man. I asked the angel: How could this be,
if I did not have relations with any man? How can this be, if I am a virgin, says the evangelist Luke, literally (Lk
I had
never spoken with an angel, said Mary, but he listened to me and we had a very
nice conversation. He said to me that I would conceive through the work of the Holy
Spirit, and that the power of the Most High would overshadow me, and that the child
to be born would be called holy, the Son of God.
So, under
this condition I said Yes to him: Behold, I am the
handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.
Then the angel departed from me (Lk
Mary added:
God always respects our freedom and our
collaboration, and still said that she could not fully understand that she
was the Mother of God, the Theotokos.
We took
leave of Mary and went away to Joseph’s house.
IN
JOSEPH’S HOUSE
Joseph,
on seeing the expression on our face, already knows why we have come. Mary has
told us about her joy. Joseph starts by explaining his sadness to us, saying
that he went through a bad time.
Joseph’s
Words
Mary
was my fiancee. We were not yet living together, and one
day they said to me that Mary was expecting a son. It was not a lie, it was not
village gossip, it was the truth and I didn’t know anything about it.
Joseph
said to us that he did not know what to do. Such a good an
holy girl, how could she have done that to him. He knew very well that if he
denounced her, she would be stoned, according to the Law of Moses.
Jose said
to himself inside: “I cannot denounce her, I will not do it”. Then he set out to undo the marriage
agreement secretly.
I had already
determined myself to do that, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to me in a
dream, and said to me not to be afraid to take Mary in my house as my wife. The
Angel said to me: “It is true that she is expecting a child, but she has
conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. And when he is born, you will
name him Jesus, because he will save his People from their sins”.
I
breathed calm, says Joseph to us, and I immediately went to the house of Mary. She looked
at me and I looked at her; those glances were very emotional, without speaking
a word we understood each other. Sometimes a glance is better than many words. I
gave her a hug and I told her that she could come to my house, not as fiancee but as wife. Our joy was immense, and since then we
have lived together.
We asked
him why Mary had not said anything to him about the visit of the angel, and he
gave us the reason Saint Agustin gives: What she had to tell me was so great
that I would have not believed it: the appearance of an angel, to be the Mother
of God, to conceive a son through the work of the Holy Spirit, that he would be
the Messiah, and that His kingdom would have no end.
San
Agustin says that
We took
leave of Joseph and we congratulated him for being the husband of Mary.
And, nothing else, beloved brothers and sisters who are listening to me. Let us prepare
Christmas as Joseph and Mary did.
Anecdote
But
before finishing, allow me to tell you a little story about a man who went to
the Opera House to listen to a good concert. On the following day, he went to
the bar, and as he was quite talkative, he explained the concert with all the
details to the men who were seated at the table with him. He perfectly
described the theatre, the stage, the decoration, the vestments of the actors,
the instruments, the people who attended, etc, etc. When he finished, a man
told him that he had talked about many things, but he had not talked about the
concert; whether he had liked it or not. He spoke loudly to him, to make
himself heard, and the man, with sadness, answered that he could not say
anything about the concert, because he was deaf.
I believe
this happens to many people. They prepare lunch, they adorn the house, they
invite the family, they drink champagne, they sing Christmas songs, etc, but
they do not see Jesus, because they don’t have a pure heart.
MAY YOU
HAVE A GOOD FEAST DAY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION