Immaculate Conception

When I get around my family for the holidays I always want to play Monopoly, nobody wants to…its too long, its not fun, we’ll just fight. There’s a resistence. But isn’t that what family time is for?!

It reminds me of when I was younger too and it was time for praying the rosary, it’s so long!!! As I get older, Its getting easier.

And so we pray, and in advent we emphasize prayer as waiting. And though we are waiting, we have Christ now. We love Christ. We have His presence physically with us. But it is a sacramental presence, as my friend says, “You can’t hold the blessed sacrament, you can behold but not hold.”

We usually focus on this reading, “Her offspring and yours will fight!” Gen 3:15 - And we see this in Revelation 12:4, “Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.

The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” Gn 3:12 (Is that not a great image of what the New Eve does for us?!) (Is this not what Christ was saying when He said, Woman? The Woman!

So, to us, it’s not to deny this reality, the already here and not yet, but how do we get into the mindset of the Israelites? They were waiting for their messiah, “The people who are in darkness have seen a great light!” Is 9:2

“The frenzy of the river rejoices the city of God. The Most High has sanctified his tabernacle. God is in its midst; it will not be shaken. God will assist it in the early morning.” Psalm 45:5-6

How do we imagine the darkness?

When will you come, Lord?!?!

And today we celebrate the Immaculate Conception!! Why? Because is the first proof that humanity has of Gods saving work. I mean, did Joachim and Anne know she was conceived as such? Could she feel the holy Spirit? Maybe, but probably not precisely. What parents don’t think their healthy and beautiful child is immaculate?! (But they did at least know she was special and there are myths around how special she was).

“Sing to the Lord a new song!” Ps. 98:1 Mary is the new song.  We have grown old by sin. Sinful people sing old songs, boring songs.  Not a sinful person?, now that’s new.  Mary is the song that the Holy Spirit sang for the Father and the Son. We can all sing this song.  And in the Church the song is sung!

“the Roman Church, mother and teacher of all Churches, has continued to teach this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin…It is the Church in which alone religion has been inviolably preserved and from which all other Churches must receive the tradition of the Faith.”[Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses, book III, c. III, n. 2.] from https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm Ineffabilis Deus 1854

And so, she was conceived in the darkness of the womb, the beginning of salvation…(though God had been working this was planned, genealogy of Matthew and Luke).

We look back and celebrate this day because God is shining a light, it is still faint, but it travels fast. Our lives are still dark, but our lady has many titles, one of my favorite is Star of the sea (Maris Stella!) The shining light that guides us to Christ!

What is it going to be like when you are sinless, beholding the face of God?! Yes! This is how May live on this earth, perfect in faith, not doubting Gods goodness, not pushing off prayer, not worried about her reputation or her body image, but focusing on God, loving her husband and trusting him, helping him to be a man, calling him forth to greatness!

St. Paul wrote today, “who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Eph. 1:3-4

& “In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,

so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.” Eph. 1:11-12

She is FULL OF GRACE, THE GRACED ONE, How much? The Fullness! Χαῖρε κεχαριτωμένη,

This is so that God’s will might be accomplished through her.

No, you won’t do something as universal as give birth to Christ.  BUT! what would happen, if the little vessel you are were to be filled with the brim with grace?! Mary shows us what is possible with humanity for God!

Yes, by loving Mary, we get a lot closer to Christ , we are drawn into His heart through hers.

When a soul loses devotion to Mary it is immediately enveloped in darkness, and in that darkness of which the Holy Ghost speaks in the Psalms: “Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night; in it shall all the beasts of the woods go about.” When the light of heaven ceases to shine in a soul, all is darkness, and it becomes the haunt of devils and of every sin. St. Anselm says, that if any one is disregarded and condemned by Mary, he is necessarily lost,  and therefore we may with reason exclaim, “Woe to those who are in opposition to this sun!” Woe to those who despise its light! that is to say, all who despise devotion to Mary. (Ibid., p.58.) - St. Alphonsus Liguori

Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.” Pius IX 1854 - Ineffabilis Deus

continued: “Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.”

St Therese on going up to communion with our lady, “As a mother cleans up her child before dinner so too Mary prepares us to receive our Lord!” We should go up to Communion with an Ave Maria on our lips, and when we are thinking about our Lord, a rosary in our hands.