SOLEMNITY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF MARY (8
DECEMBER)
Readings: First: Gen 3, 9-15. 20; Second: Eph 1, 3-6, 11-12; Gospel: Lk 1: 26-38.
Theme of the Readings
The divine initiative, full of mercy and love, seems to be the theme of today's readings. In the first reading, it is God who both asks and decides what the punishment will be for man's sin and who promises salvation. The promise that God made to Adam and Eve in paradise after centuries of preparation, he fulfilled in his Son, who accepts to become incarnate and be the new Adam. He accomplishes it as well in Mary, who accepts to be the Mother of God, and the new Eve (Gospel). With the coming of Christ into the world, with his life, death and resurrection, the Father has blessed us with all kinds of spiritual goods (Second reading). In the divine plan for salvation, all initiative comes from God and in him it achieves is ultimate end.
Doctrinal Message
Sin and salvation are two realities and two concepts that are found in all religions because they are present in the depth of every human heart. Anyone who analyzes his conscience perceives himself to be a sinner (no matter what terms are used) in need of salvation. This universal experience finds its paradigm and foundation in the first reading. Man has wanted to be God, and in his attempt has realized he "is only man" (limited in every way), and that disorder has entered into his relationship with God, with Eve, and with creation. Wanting to be "like God," the "death of God" in his heart, becomes the death of man. Through Adam sin came into the world. The subsequent chapters in Genesis and in general all the books of the Old Testament speak with great eloquence about the presence, growth, and destructive force of sin.
However, God is a Father, and looks at man with a Father's love. Even from the first moment of Adam's sin, God takes the initiative to find a way to offer man his salvation. In Genesis, the promise is made. The promise takes its first steps towards fulfillment in Noah, and then in Abraham, the patriarchs, Moses, and the Prophets. It arrives at its fulfillment in the angel's announcement to Mary: "You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus" (Gospel). According to Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, this salvation covers the following aspects (second reading): to be a chosen people, to be adopted sons through Jesus Christ, and to be a hymn of praise to his glory. Saved from sin, man will not envy God, as was the case with Adam. Free from the desire to be superhuman, man will be happy to praise and glorify God.
Mary, immaculate, in her birth, by the merits of her Son, repeats the original experience of paradise, the original experience of Adam and Eve. This is why the Church, enlightened by the Spirit, has seen in Mary the woman who wounds the serpent's head (First reading), and saw the fulfillment of this prophetic promise a the moment of the annunciation of the angel (Gospel). Mary's "yes" to God's will corresponds to Eve's no to the divine precept. In this way, in intimate union with her Son, she contributes to the salvation of her descendants.
To Mary, in a most sublime way, the Pauline hymn in the beginning of Ephesians can be personally applied: "Before the world was made, he chose me in Christ to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence.... Such is the richness of grace which he has showered on me ... to make his glory praised."
Pastoral Proposal
In our present world we can experience strong evidence of sin, of human misery, of defeat and despair. For example there can be any of the following: to have lost the sense of life, to consider oneself useless with no role in this world, to hate oneself to the point of wishing to commit suicide, to live drowning in the marsh of the ego, to experience everything because one can never find what one desires and thus living with an eternal sense of dissatisfaction, to live the experience of sin, lust, pride, hatred, atheism, and to be increasingly sunk in the belief that there is no way out.
These experiences, found in concrete cases or in less dramatic experiences of sin, are a great reference point for a pastoral proposal on Christ the Redeemer of man, who becomes our brother, and who never abandons us in our journey through life. Let us repeat with the liturgy of Advent: "Courage! Our redemption is at hand." Yes, Christmas is already upon us. Jesus Christ is knocking at the door of the world, and on the heart of each man, to offer him his peace, his love, and his salvation.
The Christian woman in our world is adopting attitudes and ideas on womanhood, femininity, her role in the home, in culture, at work, in society, that do not always honor the person of woman. In today's marketplace, we see the model of the "emancipated" woman who is a law unto herself, the model of the "professional" who sacrifices marriage and motherhood for her profession, and the model of the liberal woman in her ideas, behavior and attitude toward God, life and society. As regards attitudes, there is the woman who vindicates equality between the sexes, the woman who sees in the opposite sex, beyond a partner or complement, an adversary; then the lay woman who suffocates her religious soul under a misunderstood feminism.
These models and attitudes and other similar things, threaten the Christian woman of today. In preparation for Christmas, the feast of the Immaculate Conception offers a great opportunity to hold Mary up as a model of womanhood with no false devotion or piety: Mary, who loves both virginity and maternity; Mary, in whose faith not all is clear straight away; Mary, who looks for explanations in order to decide and act with responsibility; and, Mary, who gives a generous yes to her "mission" in life.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOA.html
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Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception December 8, 1999
First: Gn 3: 9-15.20; Second: Ep 1: 3-6.11-12; Gospel: Lk 1:26-38
THEME of the READINGS
God’s plans for man and for the world were wonderful, a true paradise, with the obvious limitation that they were his creatures. But humans, instigated by the devil, preferred to build their own paradise, rebelling against their very condition. They preferred to eliminate God and put themselves in his place. The result was disastrous, the most radical nakedness in terms of their dignity and healthy relationships (first reading). But God is faithful in his plans and concerned with the destiny of humans. This is why he responds to Adam and Eve’s sin with a wonderful plan of salvation: "I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring an hers; it will bruise your head." This promise is fulfilled when Mary, following the Angel Gabriel’s Annunciation of the Incarnation of the Word, humbly answers: "Let it happen to me as you have said" (Gospel). Oh, blessed fault! For it gave us such a Savior and such a Mother. Yes, in Jesus and in Mary, through her Son, God himself recreated human nature in his ineffable plans and elevated it to a higher rank (second reading).
DOCTrinal MESSAGE
God fulfills his plans. The life and history of the world and that of humankind do not go through ups and downs randomly or out of an inherent necessity. This would be the case if there were nothing at the origin of things or events. However, there is a God that created the universe and us in the universe. There is a God that has given order to all things and that has designed a magnificent plan for us. We call such a plan the "history of salvation". A history that begins with the history of man, achieves its fullness in Jesus Christ, the center and focal point of the universe and history, and will end with the end of time. God’s plan is a wonderful thing, the sum of all that is good, which the book of Genesis calls "paradise". The first man rebelled against this divine plan and sinned, perhaps out of lack of experience and certainly by virtue of his freedom.
What does God do in seeing that his plan is frustraed by man? He does not reject his plans of love and salvation. This is why he "punishes" man and and puts him in his place as a creature and in his condition as a limited, imperfect and weak being. In addition to this, he gives us a freedom which we are unable to use in a dignified way, at the service of his good and in accordance with God’s plan. In this situation, in the very intimacy of his being, man realizes that he is in need of salvation. Who, if not God, will be able to save him? God knows it, and makes a promise to man that will run across the centuries until the fullness of time is achieved.
God draws the good out of evil. In his providence, God does not change his plan, nor does he correct it. He does what we could not even imagine. He used sin, which was meant to destroy God’s plan, to make his love for us and his plan of salvation shine with even greater light. In this way, the divine Word entered human history, by means of Mary, and elevated to fullness and perfection both human history (Jesus is the perfect man) and the history of salvation (Je-sus is the redeemer of man and history).
In Jesus Christ, the history of salvation has achieved its apex and perfection. In him, the prototype of all humans, it has reached its final and complete phase. But history does not end in him, for it continues in the life of humans across the centuries and until the end of the world. Christ the Redeemer prolongs in history God’s salvific plan and the Holy Spirit internalizes it in the human heart. Mary is the first to participate in the fullness of the salvific history, in a privileged and unique way. But all persons of any time in history must come to grips with this divine plan and take a stance. Freedom, with which the first man came to face God’s plan, is the same freedom with which those who have come after Christ can accept or reject the Christian program of redemption. How-ever, the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ not only continues to apply, but it also meets the most profound and intimate aspirations of all humans, today, yesterday and forever.
PASTORal SUGGESTIONS
Life does not happen by chance. Your life is not a meteoroid which fell on planet earth out of the sky in the twentieth century just by chance. It is not a meteoroid that could have fallen on this earth in the 19th or 21st century, or that could simply not have fallen at all. No. Your life has a reason, it responds to a plan, it is part of a grandiose plan designed by God from his eternity. To discover your place in this divine plan, to know it well, appreciate it and give your body and soul to its fulfillment is the most important and engrossing task of your earthly existence. It is what Mary did all of her life, as exemplified in today’s Gospel with the Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel. Her lovely example urges us to follow with obedience and faith the road map that God has traced for our existence. And we must think that we are not walking alone. By our side, in our milieu, in our parish, there are other men and women that are part of the same divine plan. Let us feel solidarity for one another.
The Immaculate Conception. In God’s plan, Mary would be redeemed in an absolutely original way by the merits of her Son Jesus Christ, and in view of her vocation as Mother of God. Mary’s privileged place in God’s plan entails corresponding gifts and graces, some of a unique nature. Your life too is enriched by God with graces that are more than sufficient, in order for you to fulfill, with dignity and perfection, the place which God has assigned you in the history of salvation. It does not matter so much whether the place is large or small. What really matters is that God will be with you and bless you with his gifts so that you may succeed in occupying that place with dignity.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOB.html
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Solemnity of the IMMACULATE Conception of MARY (8th December)
First: Gn 3:9-15; Second: Eph 1:3-6.11-12; Gospel: Lk 1:26-38
THEME of the READINGS
The mystery of the Virgin Mary consists in her ability to harmonize smallness and greatness in her being and in her personality as a woman. She is the servant of the Lord who wants only his will, and is chosen to be the Mother of God (Gospel). She is the child of Eve born of flesh and blood, but she is also the redeemer of Eve, and will tread on the head of the tempting serpent (first reading). She is the child of God, like any other person, and especially like any other Christian, and is also the Mother of God, because she is the mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word (second reading).
DOCTrinal MESSAGE
Mary’s smallness and greatness. Mary is not a freak of nature. In her female nature, she is a daughter of Eve, like all the women in the world. She has the body of a woman, the psychology of a woman and the feelings of a woman. The way she is and acts are proper to the female condition. In the Galilee of the first century AD, nothing distinguished her from the other Jewish women: her physical traits, her socio-economic conditions, the discriminating legal prescriptions, her way and style of life all correspond to those of a Jewish woman. This specific personality of a Jewish woman conceals a mystery of greatness, real and invisible at the same time. The Immaculate Conception of Mary or her divine Motherhood will be proclaimed as a dogma of faith centuries later; but Mary experienced them in her earthly existence, which was entirely Jewish. She experienced it like a totally inner and ineffable reality within a unique relationship of intimacy, communion with and adhesion to God. Christian baptism, for those who receive it, overcomes the tempting serpent and his wicked action in the present and past of human history. Mary received this baptism early, thanks to the merits of her Son: at the time of her conception, she received baptism from the Holy Spirit.
Mary did not expect to be the mother of the Messiah. In the religious circle of her time, she shared with all Jews belief in and expectation of the Messiah, who would come again to free Israel of its enemies. As a humble, poor and peasant woman, she even thought it astounding that God should pick her to be the mother of the Messiah. Furthermore, it was next to impossible that the Messiah should come from Nazareth. There was nothing in her parents, in her environment, in her existence that would serve as a clue to suggest that she would have such a great and noble vocation. All this is true, but one day, all of a sudden, an experience and an evangelical vision disturbed the depths of her soul. First of all, she failed to understand such a strange greeting: "Rejoice, you who enjoy God’s favor!" Then she understood even less what the angel said about her giving birth to a son who would be called Son of the Most High (Gospel). It took the simple Nazarene woman a long time to recover from the shock. Later, after the vision had passed, she spent days and nights recalling what she had seen and heard to make it fit into her psychology and life, seeking to understand the mysterious plans of God. Finally, in her meeting with her cousin Elizabeth she expresses in words the results of her meditation: "...because he has looked upon the humility of his servant. Yes, from now onwards all generations will call me blessed."
Mary is our sister and mother. As a sister, she is like all other Christians: she is the adopted child of God through Jesus Christ, chosen to be an heir of the Kingdom of God, ordered to be the praise of the glory of God like all those who have placed their hope in Christ (second reading). Her greatness lies in the fact that in her life she is both our sister and our mother at the same time. Lumen Gentium tells us: "In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Savior in giving back supernatural life to souls"(61). And shortly before that we read: "The maternal duty of Mary toward human beings in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows his power. For all the salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on human beings originates, not from some inner necessity, but from divine pleasure. It flows forth from the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests on his mediation, depends entirely on it and draws all its power from it" (LG 60).
PASTORal SUGGESTIONS
Respect Mary’s smallness and greatness. To respect Mary’s smallness and greatness means to preserve both aspects, because they are the two wings with which Mary flew across the history of her time and must continue to fly across our history. And we already know that to fly with one wing alone is impossible. In the past centuries, the greatness of Mary was emphasized so much that sometimes her smallness was forgotten. In our time, we could run the opposite risk: we could see her so close to us, so small like us that we forget about her extraordinary greatness. We must preserve both her smallness and her greatness, because such was the historical reality of Mary, and thus she continues to make present the mystery of God among us. St Theresa of Lisieux stressed Mary’s smallness. On the day of her religious profession (8th September 1890) she wrote: "The birth of Mary! What a lovely feast to become the bride of Jesus! Indeed it was she, the small, ephemeral Blessed Virgin, the one who presented her little flower to the little Jesus." However, Theresa never ceased to praise Mary’s greatness. For example, in her last poem entitled Why I love you, oh Mary!, she says that the glory of Mary shines more brightly than that of all the chosen ones together; she calls her the queen of angels and saints, and talks about the radiance of her supreme glory. The Virgin Mary herself would be very happy if we contemplated her smallness without forgetting her greatness, if we were surprised by her greatness in the midst of her humility and smallness.
Mary: an admirable model. Mary is both of these, and both of them inseparably. She is admirable because God has done great things in her. And because she never stopped being small like us, in the midst of her sublimity and glory, she is also worthy of being imitated. As Christians, we must admire Mary, the most sublime woman who came out of God’s hands, tree in which the Wisdom of God and divine life bear fruit. But Mary is also like a mother and a sister, who is with us, who accompanies us in our journey, whose very human virtues are accessible to all. In the garden of her life we see all the most beautiful flowers in bloom. With the warm words of a mother she tells us that our life is also a garden. If we sow virtues like Mary, such virtues will flourish.
Source: http://www.clerus.org/clerus/dati/2004-05/21-13/CICLOC.html by P. ANTONIO IZQUIERDO L.C. (1948-2013)
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