SOLEMNITY OF THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
In the
first place I will comment on of the Gospel and afterwards on the celebration
of the Immaculate Conception.
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.
Mary,
Day of spiritual joy
Today is a day of joy because we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception. We, the sons and daughters of Mary, are glad because we contemplate her full of grace, all beautiful and conceived without sin. Pope Paul VI, in his Encyclical Marialis Cultis, says: In this feast, we jointly celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the immediate preparation for the coming of the Saviour and the joyful beginning of the Church, beautiful without spot or wrinkle (M. C. 3).
God, on Announcing Redemption, has Mary in Mind
In the first reading, we read how, in the beginning history, Adam and Eva sinned, precisely because God had created them free; they could eat or not from tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They sinned, and God then took the initiative, and announced the hopeful news to them: the coming of a Saviour, descendant of Adam’s lineage, who would overcome evil. This promise of salvation, already appears associated to a woman who could not be other than the mother of the Saviour, the Mother of God.
When
an architect wants to construct a house, he anticipates beforehand everything
what will be needed. God, in His infinite wisdom, as the Catechism of the
Catholic Church says (nº 490), granted Mary the gifts she needed to carry out
such an important mission. The angel Gabriel greeted her as full of Grace (Lk
If Mary was full of Grace, she could have no sin, not even the original sin committed by our first parents. For this reason, in the declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius IX says: 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).
God chose her before the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate in His presence, in love.
We are happy to see how God prepared Mary and we are happy for the Yes that Mary gave to the angel, after a sincere dialogue with him, and clarifying her doubts. A young girl engaged in an admirable dialog with an angel of the Lord. This Yes was repeated during all her life, in the joys and sorrows, especially at the foot de la Cross.
Mary shows us how to follow the Lord
This “Yes”
of Mary, is the prototype for millions of Christians who have said yes to the Lord
with the same words of Mary: May it be done to me according to your word (Lk
Mary, as a new Eve, mother of the living, is the model of faith, hope and charity, who prefigures the Church, glorious wife of Christ, holy and immaculate, as we say in today’s Preface.
As mothers prepare themselves to receive their son with love and tenderness, we can ask ourselves how did Mary prepare herself, knowing that the fruit of her womb would be the Son of the Most High, the Son of God.
In Mary, we have a good teacher in the way that leads us to Jesus. She gives us a good example to follow, because she knew how to correspond to the grace and gifts that the Lord had given her.
Mary does not have original sin by virtue of the merits of Jesus
Mary does not have original sin by the merits of Christ, the Saviour. It is because of Jesus, that Mary is preserved of sin. Being a member of our human race, although she did not have sin, she was in needed of salvation, which only comes from Christ. But she, in a singular way, receives in advance the saving merits of Christ.
The cause of this gift: The power of God.
The reason: In the divine maternity, God wanted to prepare a pure place in which his Son incarnated Himself.
Fruits:
1. Mary was immune of the tendencies of the flesh, and of disordered desires of the sensitive appetite inclined to evil.
2. Mary was preserved of any personal sin during all her life. This was the greatness of Mary, who being free never offended God, did not want anything that made her impure or that caused her to lose the grace she had received.
3. The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, shows us a way to follow:
a. It calls us to purification. To be pure because Jesus lives in us.
b. It invites to us to consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary; a safe way to reach the perfect knowledge of Christ and to be filled with Him.
c. Let us imitate Mary, let us really love her and let us carry her in our heart, and let us announce her to our relatives and friends.
Have a
good feast day of the Immaculate Conception.