Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

SOLEMNITY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Genesis 3:9-15, 20; Psalm 98: 1-4; Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12; Luke 1:26-38

The teachings on the Immaculate conception hold that the Blessed Virgin Mary “in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, given the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved, exempt from all stain of original sin. It is worth clarifying that the dogma of Immaculate Conception does not refer to Mary’s conception of Jesus. Rather it is the stainless conception of Mary as free from original sin in the womb of St. Ann (her aged mother), by God’s grace, in view of her role as Mother of God. Now, it is also good to note that this dogma did not just fall from no.

It remains the truth revealed in Sacred Scripture and Tradition – guarded, interpreted, and taught by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Mary’s preservation from original sin does not deny the perfect universal redemption granted through Christ’s death and resurrection; rather, it was on the ground of the same merit of the sure and perfect redemption in Christ that her preservation was guaranteed for her role in salvation history.

Our first reading describes the Fall of human nature in losing its original state of communion. This feast is a reminder that the contracted sin of primal disobedience is no hindrance to the divine workings. Since “for with God nothing shall be impossible.” (see. Lk 1:37) So that whatever privilege Mary enjoys or title accrued to her is as a result of the Divine merits of the Divine Word (Jesus Christ) made incarnate in her, as an everlasting monument of God’s triumph over sin. In Christ the New Adam is all things restored; even Eve, the Mother of all living, who was also virgin and sinless before the fall is restored in Mary the New Eve – as Immaculate and ever Virgin. (See Lk 1:34) She becomes now through the grace of the New Adam on the Tree of the Cross, the “mother of all redeemed”. “Woman, behold your son”, said Jesus to his mother, and to John (the faithful disciple), “behold your mother.”

Paul in our second reading, praises this triumph of grace in the life of the Church, (our mother who patterns the generative power of the new Eve), as imbued with “every spiritual blessing” in other words, “full of grace.” Even in the face of humanity’s frailty, the Church is so predestined as the universal vessel of salvation until the consummation of time. The church’s devotion to the Immaculate Conception inspires a firm sense of hope, that even when one cannot imitate Mary as “uniquely privileged” through preservation, one can imitate her through a recommitment to the divine will and cooperation with the merciful and all-powerful action of God over sin by means of prayer, the sacraments, the practice of virtue; matching victory over vices, addictions and tendencies to infidelity.

The teaching of the “Immaculate Birth” is not just a doctrine; we believe it, we pray it, we live it every day. This dogma is still being affirmed by God through many apparitions of our Lady as the Immaculate Conception. This is our joy as Carmelites and indeed for all Christian believers, that our life of allegiance to Jesus in the company of Mary, as our exemplar of docility to God signals our sure hope of salvation.