Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

The Month of December Dedicated to Advent and the Coming of Christ

Readings of the Day

Rule of Saint Benedict: Ch 55:15-22 The Clothing and Footwear of the Brothers

Mass: Gn 3:9-15, 20; Resp Ps 98; Eph 1:3-6, 11-12; Lk 1:26-38

Sing to the Lord a new song.

MARY, QUEEN CONCEIVED WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN,

MOTHER INVIOLATE,

MARY, MOST CHASTE,

MARY, QUEEN OF PEACE,

OUR LADY OF MONTILGEON,

PRAY FOR US.

Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 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)

O, Mary, conceived free from the stain of original sin, "full of grace ... the Angel greets Mary with this title. It is the name that God, through His messenger, chose to describe the Virgin. This is always how He has seen and thought of her, ab aeterno (from all eternity)" (Pope Saint John Paul II). On this most glorious Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, may our souls, like the soul of Mary, proclaim the greatness of the Lord; may our spirits rejoice in God our savior (see Lk 1:46-47). Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing.

Now from three of our great saints ... Mary, Queen of all saints, pray for us.

God

the author of miracles

worked three specific wonders

in Mary.

He marvelously instilled

full purity in her

so that the ark of the covenant could be covered

with the purest gold.

He made her virginal purity 

flourish powerfully

so that the burning bush could not be consumed.

He remarkably joined together

the lowest things with the highest,

so that through the medium of Jacob's ladder

earthly things could be linked

with heavenly ones.

(Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in Mary Most Holy: Meditations With the Early Cistercians)

Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night-everything that is subject to the power or use of man-rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and endowed with inexpressible new grace ...

The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God Himself, its Creator, it sees Him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary's womb ...

Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator Himself has been blessed by creation ...

Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to Himself.

(From a sermon by Saint Anselm, bishop, in Office of Readings, December 8)

HOW GREAT GOD IS! AND HOW SWEET IS MARY!

(Saint Rafael Arnaiz in The Collected Works: Saint Rafael Arnaiz)

Today's image: Loving Kindness through the hand of Sister Suzanne, ocso. He has done wondrous deeds.

© Gertrude Feick 2022

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Year of Saint Joseph

Year of the Family "Amoris Laetitia The Joy of Love"

Readings of the Day

RB: Ch 55:15-22 Clothing and Footwear

Mass: Gn 3:9-15, 20; Resp Ps 98; Eph 1:3-6, 11-12; Lk 1:26-38

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

MARY, QUEEN CONCEIVED WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN,

PRAY FOR US.

What has been going through my heart this morning is gratitude. How blessed are we with our faith tradition, and especially today as we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. With Saint Paul we proclaim: "Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 in love" (Eph 1:3-4). In the words of Pope Saint Paul II, then, "today let us contemplate the humble girl of Nazareth, holy and blameless before God in love, in that 'love' whose original source is God Himself, one and triune." What follows is last year's reflection with a few changes. It works. 

The hymn "Immaculate Mary" comes to mind this morning: Immaculate Mary, your praises we sing, you reign now in splendor with Jesus our King. Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria! Ave, Ave, Maria. It is helpful to turn to the words of Pope Bl Pius IX in his 1854 Encyclical Letter Ineffabilis deus for the Church's teaching on the Immaculate Conception:

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, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.

On this glorious celebration, a holy day of obligation, the patronal feast of our country, and still in the Year of Saint Joseph, we look to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who "by the grace of God remained free from every personal sin her whole life long" (CCC 493) to pray for us, and help us on our pilgrim journey of faith. God is patient and ever merciful. He waits for us to turn away from sin and turn towards Him. Dear Lord, may it be done to me according to your word (Lk 1:38). Remember, "nothing will be impossible for God" (Lk 1:37). 

In heaven the blessed your glory proclaim; On earth we your children invoke your fair name. Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria! Ave, Ave, Maria. We pray for our Mother, the Church upon earth, And bless, Holy Mary, the land of our birth. Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria! Ave, Ave, Maria.

The uncontaminated beauty of our Mother is incomparable, but at the same time it attracts us. Let us entrust ourselves to her and say 'no' to sin and 'yes' to Grace once and for all.

(Pope Francis, Angelus Address, December 8, 2020)

MARY, SEAT OF WISDOM,

JOSEPH, CHASTE GUARDIAN OF THE VIRGIN,

PRAY FOR US.

Today's photo: This is the one I was looking for, fitting with today's Responsorial Psalm. From the archives, Dreigestirn Mountains, Switzerland, what dear Kornelia used to see out her window at Kloster Melchtal. I remember the beautiful Benedictine Sisters of Melchtal, now joined with the Benedictine Sisters at Sarnen, and the Sisters of Maria Rickenbach too. For their health and well-being, and that includes dear Kornelia, we pray to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer.

© Gertrude Feick 2021

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Patronal Feast of the United States of America

 Readings of the day: RB 55:15-22

Mass: Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Resp. Psalm 98; Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12; Luke 1:26-38

 

 Peter Paul Rubens, Immaculate Conception, 1627

HAIL, MARY, FULL OF GRACE!

THE LORD IS WITH YOU;

BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN.

ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA.

Herewith today’s reading from Vigils. Thank you, Karl Rahner (1904-1984).

This beginning is the disposition of God alone, the moment when God’s love bestowing itself on human beings is still collected, concentrated in itself, or rather, is originally immanent in itself as a love which has already forestalled guilt and which, because of this power, permits the weakness of guilt. Where this love posits such a created historical beginning, there is the beginning of the Blessed Virgin.

Nevertheless, or rather, precisely in this way, this glory of a pure beginning originating in God was a beginning which had to be experienced with sorrow. The origin meant a future for everyday life, customary things, silence, the seven sorrows and the death of her Son and her own death. Only then was the beginning attained by the future retrieving the beginning. Only then was it disclosed as pure grace.

And the more that love and forgiveness which encompasses and belongs to our beginning is accepted in the pain of life and in the death which gives life, and the more this original element emerges and is allowed to manifest itself and pervade our history, the more the difference, the contradiction in the beginning is resolved and redeemed. And all the more will it be revealed that we ourselves were also implied in that pure beginning whose feast day we are celebrating.

When the beginning has found itself in the fulfillment and has been fulfilled in the freedom of accepting love, God will be all in all. Because then all will belong to all, the differences will of course still be there but they will have been transformed and will belong to the blessedness of unifying love, and no longer of separation. And for that reason this feast is our feast. 

K. Rahner, ‘The Feast Day of a Holy Beginning’ in The Great Church Year, pp. 374-375.

MARY,

QUEEN CONCEIVED WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN,

PRAY FOR US.