Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

The liturgy provides us with the story of the fall of our first parents and the Annunciation. The scriptures, especially Paul, talks about Christ as the new Adam. The Fathers of the Church help us understand that Mary is the new Eve, and today’s liturgy invites us to meditate upon this great mystery. In the beginning, when God created men and women, He created us subject to a law. He gave us paradise with the single condition of obedience. We know, again from Saint Paul, that if our first parents, Adam and Eve, had obeyed the voice of God none of us would have ever known sin. Adam’s obedience would have been enough to prevent any of the rest of us from falling. We fell in Adam. In other words, Adam’s disobedience caused us all to become naturally disobedient.

If we turn now and look at how God saves us from that fall, the first person God has us look at in the New Testament – the first person we see recreated in God’s grace – is the Virgin Mary. Mary shows us a great example of how to be Christian. It is very simple, when God recreates humanity – when He recreates us – He does not give us another law: do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead He gives us the announcement of a mysterious divine person who will save us. He doesn’t give Mary a law to follow: He invites her to give birth to someone. That’s what makes our Christian life so special – the law doesn’t go away, but God invites us to something new. The Christian life is an invitation from God: God is inviting us to conceive in our hearts. He asks us to let the Word of God begin to live in our hearts like a seed. That seed will grow until it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

Christian grace is so amazing – it is a gift from God. It is His presence in our lives and in our hearts. He grows in us in ways we do not and cannot fully comprehend. He saves us because we allow Him to dwell in our hearts richly, because we allow his Word to become fully alive in our souls. May our Lady of the Immaculate Conception inspire us today with the simple wisdom to let it be done unto us according to His Word. Her generosity itself was God’s gift to her, may God bless us with that same openness of heart.

Daily Readings

Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
by USCCB on November 23, 2024 at 9:30 am
Reading Rv 11:4-12 I, John, heard a voice from heaven speak to me: Here are my two witnesses: These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies. In this way, anyone wanting to harm them is sure to be slain. They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain can fall during the time of their prophesying. They also have power to turn water into blood and to afflict the earth with any plague as often as they wish. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will wage war against them and conquer them and kill them. Their corpses will lie in the main street of the great city, which has the symbolic names “Sodom” and “Egypt,” where indeed their Lord was crucified. Those from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation will gaze on their corpses for three and a half days, and they will not allow their corpses to be buried. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and be glad and exchange gifts because these two prophets tormented the inhabitants of the earth. But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered them. When they stood on their feet, great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, “Come up here.” So they went up to heaven in a cloud as their enemies looked on. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 144:1, 2, 9-10 R. (1b) Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!Blessed be the LORD, my rock,who trains my hands for battle, my fingers for war.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!My mercy and my fortress,my stronghold, my deliverer,My shield, in whom I trust,who subdues my people under me.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!O God, I will sing a new song to you;with a ten stringed lyre I will chant your praise,You who give victory to kings,and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.R. Blessed be the Lord, my Rock! Alleluia See 2 Tm 1:10 R. Alleluia, alleluia. Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel. R. Alleluia, alleluia. Gospel Lk 20:27-40 Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us, If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman but died childless. Then the second and the third married her, and likewise all the seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Some of the scribes said in reply, “Teacher, you have answered well.” And they no longer dared to ask him anything. Readings for the Optional Memorial of Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, priest and martyrReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Columban, abbotReadings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Clement I, pope and martyr - - - Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Like this:

Related

Share this:

Like this:

Related