🌟The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrates the singular privilege by which the Mother of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, was preserved immune from all stain of original guilt in the first instant of her conception. This dogma, solemnly defined by Pope Pius IX in the bull Ineffabilis Deus in 1854, crowns an ancient devotion in the Church, which recognizes in Mary the "new Eve," created in a state of full grace and original justice, just as the first woman before the fall, but confirmed in grace in an eminent way to be the worthy dwelling of the Son of God. In the traditional calendar, this is a first-class feast, reaffirming that the victory over the serpent, prophesied in Genesis, begins to materialize in the purest existence of the one who would become the Tabernacle of the Most High.
📜Epistle (Prov 8:22-35)
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out: The mountains with their huge bulk had not as yet been established: before the hills I was brought forth: He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law and compass he enclosed the depths: When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times; playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men. Now therefore, ye children, hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord.
✠Gospel (Lk 1:26-28)
At that time, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
🏰The Immaculate Sanctuary and Eternal Wisdom
The liturgy of today invites us to contemplate the mystery of Mary's predestination in the divine mind, intertwining the eternity of uncreated Wisdom with the historical realization of the Incarnation. By applying the text of Proverbs to the Virgin, the Church teaches that Mary was not an accident in the history of salvation, but God's primordial plan: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways." She is the masterpiece of creation, conceived in the mind of the Creator before all things, pure and immaculate, to be the mirror of divine holiness. Saint Augustine, when treating the universality of sin, reverently excludes the Virgin Mary, stating that, for the honor of the Lord, the question of sin must not even be raised when it comes to her (De Natura et Gratia). The Gospel confirms this theological reality with the Angel's greeting: "Hail, full of grace." The original Greek term indicates a past and permanent fullness; she was not merely filled at that moment, but was molded, from the very beginning of her existence, in divine grace. As Thomistic theology and the Magisterium teach, Mary was redeemed in a more sublime manner than the other saints; we are lifted up after the fall, she was preserved from falling. She is the "house" mentioned in the Lesson, whose gates we must watch; to find Mary is, truly, to find Life, for she is the door through which Life entered the world. Thus, the Immaculate Conception is not merely a Marian privilege, but the dawn of our own redemption, the promise that grace is greater than sin and that God has prepared a safe refuge for humanity in the purity of her who is "playing in the world," interceding as the Mother of all the living.
🇺🇸See English version of the critical articles here.
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