My dear friends in Christ,
Today we celebrate the great Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Not only that, but today is our patronal feast as Americans. Our Nation is entrusted to the patronage of the Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception. It is no coincidence that this great feast occurs each year at the beginning of Advent, at a time when we are preparing for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, for if it was not for the Blessed Mother, December 25th would just be another ordinary winter day.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page, let us be clear of what we are celebrating today. Today we celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary and her sinless conception. It is Mary’s conception, not Christ’s that gathers us here this morning. It is one of the 4 Marian Dogmas of our Catholic Faith. It was formally defined fairly recently, by Pope Pius IX in 1854, but belief in Mary being conceived without sin goes back to the earliest days of the Church. In the his letter announcing this new dogma, one of the few times a pope has ever taught ex cathedra, he said:
“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.”
Mary always points us back to her son, every dogma about Mary reveals to us something about Christ. Mary being conceived without sin was necessary for her to conceive Jesus, who is God in her womb. She was saved by the merits and sacrifice on the Cross of her Son, even before he was born. The salvific action of Christ is not bound by time. Just as we are saved from sin 2000 years after Christ, Mary was saved some 47 some years beforehand.
I want to contrast this passage we hear from Luke this morning with that of the Fall in Genesis. In Genesis, Eve, who was also without original sin, has an angel appear to her, Lucifer was a fallen angel. This angel convinces her to say no to God and disobey him. This disobedience to God is shared with a man, her husband, Adam. This disobedience, which is sin, and death are then passed down to all mankind, the descendants of Adam and Eve. This is original sin. Now in St. Luke’s Gospel we have a woman without original sin who has an angel, Gabriel, appear to her. She responds by obeying and believing in God and saying yes to him. That obedience is passed on to the man who was conceived in her womb, Jesus Christ, who when he later says yes to God and is obedient to him unto death on a Cross, all of mankind is saved from sin and death. This was all made possible by a young woman saying yes to God.
So my friends as we continue our journey through this beautiful season of Advent, let us spend some time with our Blessed Mother. Let us take some time to meditate on today’s Gospel. What did Mary do after the Angel left her? What was she feeling in her heart? How can she who made the first coming of Christ possible help us as we prepare for his second coming? Let us seek to follow her example of obedience and trust in God. When our time comes and the Lord asks something of us, let us respond: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
Hound of the Lord 