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.
EXPLANATION
OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Today is
a great feast day, the celebration of the Immaculate Conception. The Virgin
Maria was conceived without stain of original sin.
This feast
day was already celebrated in the Church for many years, but it was not a dogma
of faith until the year 1854. Pope Pius IX declared the dogma with 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
(Catechism of the Catholic Church, nº 491).
God,
after creating this admirable world, created the first man and the first woman,
Adam and Eve, and He introduced them into
As
Only
Jesus, because He is God, the Most Holy Virgin Mary, by a privilege, and Saint
John the Baptist, who was sanctified in his mother’s womb before birth, had no
original sin.
Let us
briefly explain what the privilege of the Immaculate Conception consist in.
The Most
Holy Virgin Mary, would have to have the original sin,
like every other woman, but God granted her the grace of being born without
original sin.
We can easily
find the cause and the reasons for this singular privilege.
God, from
all eternity, had predestined her to be Mother of God, the mother of Jesus, God
and man. The maternity of Mary is the main cause for this singular grace.
The
sanctity of Jesus demanded that her mother was immaculate. The temple that
would give birth to the Son of God, could in no way be
stained by original sin. The Father, God, had chosen her, before the creation
of the world, to be holy and immaculate in his presence (Eph 1:4).
The Archangel
Gabriel greeted her by saying: Hail,
favoured one! The Lord is with you (Lk
If we look
at history, we can clearly see how great has the devotion to
the Most Holy Virgin Mary been. Everywhere we find hermitages,
sanctuaries, temples dedicated to the Virgin Mary. (In the Sanish
speaking world), many women are named “Conchitas”,
“Concepcion” or “Inmaculada”.
Increase
your devotion to the Virgin Mary. Parents, pass down this devotion to your
children. Let us not lose this devotion. I recommend the Holy Rosary to you and
the three Hail Maries before going to sleep.
Let us really love the Virgin Mary.
HAVE A GOOD FEAST DAY OF THE IMMACULATE
CONCEPTION