St. Mary Parish, Manchester at 210 West Main Street, Manchester, MI 48158 US - Homily for The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dec. 8, 2008)

The solemnity, which we celebrate today, is extremely important to all of us. The feasts and solemnities of the Church year allow us to enter into the mystery of what is called salvation history, which is the gradually unfolding of our salvation in the course of human time. The first of the great solemnities that occurs within the early days of Advent is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There is a reason why this feast is placed where it is. Today’s feast highlights the importance of the Mother of God in the unfolding of the plan of salvation offered to man through Jesus Christ.

In the Book of Genesis the Church directs our attention to the beginning, to the first days of human life. Let us recall that God created Adam and Eve, mortal yet eternal. They were full of grace. To be full of grace means to have the life of God dwelling within you, with no attraction, no lure to sin, those things are what the Church calls concupiscence. Sin, before the Fall of Adam and Eve, was unknown. Imagine a world without sin. This is how God created human beings. This is how God created the world. There was complete peace and harmony in human beings relationship with the natural order and with the supernatural order.

In accepting the lies that there was more to be had in their life, Eve and through her invitation, Adam, together turn their back on the complete union and communion that they enjoyed with God, they do this in the hope of becoming God’s equal. Eve, who represents the entire human race, wants to become the Creator. Satan tempts Eve and her husband into denying their humanity and they take the bate. The consequences of their choice are not only personal but they are also communal. Eve’s choice not only will affect the first husband and wife, but the entire human race because Eve becomes the mother of all the living.

In their dreadful choice the human race, created in God’s imagine and likeness, generated by God’s love, was deeply wounded and that wound carries with it separation, disordered appetites, estrangement, disharmony and death. These are the fruit of Eve’s pride and disobedience. So through Eve, the human race is changed and no longer enjoys the fullness of grace and union with God. But God’s plan to restore fallen human beings is planted by God at the precise moment of Eve’s disobedience and in the fullness of time it would bring forth the fruit of redemption. God chose a woman who would far surpass Eve; she would be her daughter, yet she would also become her mother, the mother of a redeemed humanity, that woman is Mary.

When the Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary, he greets her with a most unique and unusual salutation: “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” God’s sacred messenger reveals to Mary, and later to all the followers of Christ her Son, that which could not be seen in the depth of her soul, her interior life, a mystery that had been veiled since the moment of her ensoulment in the womb of St. Anne. Mary is different than all other women; God has touched her in a miraculous way. Through the prayerful contemplation of many popes and spiritual fathers the Church has come to understand Gabriel’s greeting from God to mean that Mary is like Eve prior to the fall, she is full of grace and incapable of any sin.

This singular privilege bestowed upon Mary was a gift from God granted to her so that she could answer in total freedom to the question of God: “Will you assist me in the bringing forth of salvation by allowing my Son, the Eternal Word, to become your Son? “Will you give to my Son your immaculate flesh so that He can redeem it?” This is where Mary’s response to God takes a very different direction than that of her mother Eve. “Mary said, behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

The Immaculate Conception of Mary heralds the coming of the Savior. This is why the Church places this great feast early on in the Advent season as the Church recalls, and actually relives the unfolding of salvation history. Mary is the morning star, the star that appears in the sky just prior to the rising of the sun. In Mary, the morning star, the radiance of her immaculate soul and body point us toward the Son, her Son, the Savior, who will shine forth like the sun on a world darkened by sin, offering to it the warmth of a restored life of grace and an eternal reunion with the heavenly Father.

I would like to end this Marian reflection with the beautiful words of a hymn in honor of the holy Mother of God entitled “Tota Pulcra Es”.

You are all beautiful, Mary,
And there is in you no original stain.
You are the glory of Jerusalem.
You are the joy of Israel.
You are the honor of our people.
You are the advocate of sinners.
O Mary, virgin most prudent.
Mother most clement, pray for us.
Intercede for us before the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.