So the Feast of the Immaculate Conception rolls round again. I always feel more than a little baffled and lost when I contemplate this mystery, wondering what to think. I am not alone in this for I have heard numerous priests when giving homilies on the subject admit to finding it difficult and have noticed others hedging of and preaching about something else. Its a pity you know that the Immaculate Conception was not included in the Luminous Mysteries, the Mysteries of Light. We might have learned a lot. Apparently even many, many Catholics think the Immaculate Conception concerns the Conception of Jesus in the Womb of Mary, but it does not. It was the Immaculate conception of Mary in Womb of her Mother St Anne. The Immaculate Conception 490 To become the mother of the Savior, Mary "was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role."132 The angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace".133 In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace. 491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God,134 was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854: 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.135 492 The "splendor of an entirely unique holiness" by which Mary is "enriched from the first instant of her conception" comes wholly from Christ: she is "redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son".136 The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" and chose her "in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love".137 “Today we contemplate the humble girl of Nazareth who, by an extraordinary and ineffable privilege, was preserved from the contagion of original sin and from every fault, so that she could be a worthy dwelling-place for the Incarnate Word. In Mary, the New Eve, Mother of the New Adam, the Father’s original, wondrous plan of love was re-established in an even more wondrous way. Therefore the Church gratefully acclaims: “Through you, immaculate Virgin, the life we had lost was returned to us. You received a child from heaven, and brought forth to the world a Saviour” (Liturgy of the Hours, Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday, Benedictus Antiphon).” “The Immaculate Virgin however invites us not to fix our eyes on her but to pass beyond, and as much as possible, to enter into the mystery in which she was conceived: the mystery of God who is One and Three, full of grace and fidelity. As the moon shines with the light of the sun, so the immaculate splendour of Mary is totally relative to that of the Redeemer. The Mother leads us to her Son; passing through her, we reach Christ. For this reason, Dante Allighieri notes fittingly: “that her radiance alone can dispose you to see Christ”. “Mary was pleasing to God because of her docile humility. To the heavenly messenger, she replied, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1,38). It is with the same interior disposition that believers are called to accept the divine will in every circumstance.” “Today the Church is celebrating the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If Christ is the day that never fades, Mary is its dawn, shining with beauty. Chosen in advance to be the Mother of the incarnate Word, Mary is at the same time the first-fruits of his redeeming action. The grace of Christ the Redeemer acted in her in anticipation, preserving her from original sin and from any contagion of guilt.” “The Immaculate Conception shines like a beacon of light for humanity in all the ages. At the beginning of the third millennium, it guides us to believe and hope in God, in his salvation and in eternal life. In particular, it lights the way of the Church, which is committed to the new evangelization.” Pope St John Paul
Thank you for the timely reminder. Yes, the feast day is 8 December, and then Mother Mary's birthday is on 8 September. I love these dates so much, just like I love Christmas so much. A wonderful time, Advent.
“This important Marian feast occurs during Advent, a season of watchful and prayerful preparation for Christmas. She who knew better than anyone how to wait attentively for the Lord guides us and shows us how to make more vital and active our journey to the Holy Night of Bethlehem. With her, we spend these weeks in prayer and, guided by her bright star, hasten to make the spiritual journey that will lead us to celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation with greater intensity.” Pope St John Paul
Well said, sparrow! A true joy. Avoid any Catholic Bible which dares to translate the greeting of Gabriel to Mary as, "Hail highly favored one" or some such rubbish. For as Padraig's post #3 above shows, Luke 1:26 is the foundation stone for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It truly is "Hail full of grace" since the title is in the perfect past participle: an untainted gift received in the past which carries on into infinity! The verse has nothing directly to do with Mary's Maternity, but rather her Purity!
Ah, sparrow: I see you have a similar affinity for the women in my life: Mary, Therese, Joan; but then, of course, for me there is also my beloved wife, Geralyn!
Well, don't get too carried away! For a guy like me to deal with 4 women in my life is a challenge in itself! Oh no, then there are my two daughters!
We're having a novena coming up to the Feast and the priests are giving little homilies at the Masses. The priest last night gave a talk on the Devotion of saying three , 'Hail Mary's' at morning and evening originally placed forward by St Brigit of Sweden but endorsed by a whole multitude of saints. Such a simple devotion, so easy to do. I love these simple down to Earth homilies you can take home with you and do something with. The night before another priest gave a simple homily on the three Marian Sacramentals. The Brown Scapular, the Miraculous Medal and the Holy Rosary. Again simple things that you can take home with you to do something about. It reminds me of the way priests talked when I was young. The way Jesus taught. I love being given these simple ideas I can work with.
I can feel the excitement building in heaven as the Great Feast draws near. They go the whole hog up there they really enter into things and teach us how to do it. By chance when reading , 'The Life of the Virgin Mary', by Blessed Catherine Emmerich I am at the point where Saint Joachim enters the Temple in Jerusalem. He is met by and angel who takes him to the Ark of the Convenant. The angel produces a white globe in which he is shown all the events that lead up to the Immaculate Conception. Saint Joachim and St Anne suffered very much leading to the Immaculate Conception. Truly appalling pain. I see this on the forum when people ask for prayers. Very often their situations are so terrible my jaw drops open. But I comfort myself by thinking that the Cross is the doorway to Resurrection in their lives. The true high way to heaven. Saints Joachim and Anna, pray for us.
I am so excited and happy that the Great Day of the Feast has rolled round. Getting set to go out to 8am Mass. Have I learnt anything at all about the Great Mystery of the Immaculate Conception the past few days? Well I think I did last night and it reflects so much in my understanding of what is going on in the Church and the World at the moment. The Good Lord explained to Blessed Catherine Emmerich the hidden meaning of the story of Tobias in Scripture. It tells the story of two Israelite families, that of the blind Tobit in Nineveh and of the abandoned Sarah in Ecbatana. Tobit's son Tobias is sent to retrieve ten silver talents that Tobit once left in Rages, a town in Media; guided and aided by the angel Raphael he arrives in Ecbatana, where he meets Sarah. The Lord explains to Catherine that the humble and blind Tobit represents the Faithful Remnant , the pious Jews who wait for the coming of the Messiah in hungry hope. It seems to me this also represents the Faithful Remnant in the Church who live good simple honest Catholic lives waiting on Restoration of the Church. Now the Lord pointed out to Catherine that Tobit's wife Anna represents the Pharisees and Saducees. This can also be taking to represent the corrupt, perverted and heretical leaders presently in charge of the Church. Ana accepts a stolen lamb but Tobit refuses to give it houseroom. This to me represents what is happening in the Church at the moment what good people refuse to accept the evil nonsense coming from Rome and elsewhere. Anna and Tobit fight about his refusal to accept dishonesty, this is the apparent Schism that is going on in the Church at the moment. One side wants to do and accept evil, the other side says not. The role of the devil in the story is to continuously destroy and kill everything good. As he is also trying to do in the Church at the moment. The wedding represents the Immaculate Conception which the Devil has done everything he could to try to prevent. It also represents the eventual Triumph of the the Immaculate Heart of Mary which is the Triumph of the Church in our own day.
Yes its like seeing it for the first time. https://www.ecatholic2000.com/anne/lom17.shtml The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich 2.7 THE LIFE STORY OF TOBIAS. AN ALLEGORY OF THE COMING OF SALVATION. [On the feast of the Archangel Michael in September 1821, Catherine Emmerich recounted, amongst other fragments of a vision of the holy angels, the following fragment of the story of Tobias, whom she had seen with the Archangel Raphael as his guide.]I saw many things from the life of Tobias, which is an allegory of the history of the coming of salvation in Israel; not an imaginative allegory, but one which actually happened and was lived. It was shown to me that Sarah, the wife of the young Tobias, was a prototype of St. Anne. I will relate as much as I can remember of the many things that happened, but shall not be able to reproduce them in their right order. The elder Tobias was an emblem of the God-fearing branch of the Jewish race, those who were hoping for the Messiah. The swallow, the messenger of spring, indicated the near approach of salvation. The blindness of old Tobias signified that he was to beget no more children, and was to devote himself entirely to prayer and meditation; it signified also the faithful, though dim, longing and waiting for the light of salvation and the uncertainty as to whence it was to come. Tobias' quarrelsome wife represented the empty and harassing forms into which the Pharisees had converted the Law. The kid which she had brought home in lieu of wages had, as Tobias warned her, really been stolen, and had for that reason been handed on to her in return for very little. Tobias knew the people concerned and all about it, but his wife only mocked him. This mockery also indicated the contempt of the Pharisees and formalists for the devout Jews and Essenes and the relationship between the two groups, but I cannot now remember how this was.The Archangel Raphael was not telling an untruth when he said that he was Azarias, the son of Ananias, for the general meaning of these words is: The help of the Lord out of the cloud of the Lord'. [40] This angel, the companion of young Tobias, represented God's watchfulness over the Blessed Virgin's descent through her ancestors and His preservation and guidance of the Blessing through the generations which preceded her conception. In the prayer of the Elder Tobias, and of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel (I saw both these prayers being brought by the angels at one and the same time before the Throne of God and there granted), I recognized the supplications of the God-fearing Israelites and of the Daughters of Sion for the coming of salvation, as well as the simultaneous prayers of Joachim and Anna, separated from each other, for the promised offspring. The blindness of the elder Tobias and his wife's mockery of him also symbolized Joachim's childlessness and the rejection of his sacrifice at the Temple. The seven husbands of Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, who were destroyed by Satan, came to their end through sensuality; for Sarah had made a vow to give herself only to a chaste and God-fearing man. These seven men symbolized those whose entry into Jesus' ancestry according to the flesh would have hindered the coming of the Blessed Virgin, and thus the advent of salvation. There was also a reference to certain unblessed periods in the history of salvation and to the suitors whom Anna had to reject that she might be united to Joachim, the father of Mary. The maidservant's reviling of Sarah ( Tob. 3.7) symbolized the reviling by the heathen and by the godless and unbelieving among the Jews against the expectation of the Messiah, for whose coming all God-fearing Jews were, like Sarah, inspired to pray with ever-increasing fervor. It was also an image of the reviling of Anna by her maidservant, whereafter that holy mother prayed with such fervor that her prayer was granted. The fish which was about to swallow young Tobias symbolized the powers of darkness, heathendom, and sin striving against the coming of salvation, and also Anna's long barrenness. The killing of the fish, the removal of its heart, liver, and gall, and the burning of this by Tobias and Sarah to make smoke--all these symbolized the victory over the demon of fleshly lusts who had strangled Sarah's seven husbands, as well as the good works and continence of Joachim and Anna, by which they had obtained the blessing of holy fruitfulness. I also saw therein a deep significance relating to the Blessed Sacrament, but can no longer explain this. The gall of the fish, which restored the sight of Tobias' father, symbolized the bitterness of the suffering through which the chosen ones among the Jews came to know and share in salvation; it indicated also the entry of the light into the darkness brought about by Jesus' bitter sufferings from His birth onwards.I received many explanations of this kind, and saw many details of the history of Tobias. I think the descendants of young Tobias were among the ancestors of Joachim and Anna. The elder Tobias had other children who were not godly. Sarah had three daughters and four sons. Her first child was a daughter. The elder Tobias lived to see his grandchildren.
Its not difficult to apply this explanation of the story of Tobbias to our days with the Apostasy in the Church. An Apostacy which we are told is not even happening.
On this Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, I always like to post St. Maximilian Kolbe's contemplation of the Immaculate Conception. WHO THEN ARE YOU, O IMMACULATE CONCEPTION by St. Maximilian Kolbe Just a few hours before his second and final arrest, St. Maximilian Kolbe on February 17, 1941, wrote down his last reflections on the Immaculate Conception. The question, "Who are you, O Immaculate Conception?" occupied his priestly mind and heart forming him to be a living witness of the power of the Immaculate and to die as a living offering of love. “IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. These words fell from the lips of the Immaculata herself. Hence, they must tell us in the most precise and essential manner who she really is. Since human words are incapable of expressing divine realities, it follows that these words: “Immaculate,” and “Conception” must be understood in a much more profound, much more beautiful and sublime meaning than usual: a meaning beyond that which human reason at its most penetrating, commonly gives to them. St. Paul wrote, quoting the Prophet Isaiah: “Things that the eye has not seen, that the ear has not heard, that the heart of man has not imagined” (Is. 64,4), such are the good things that God has prepared for those who love him (I Cor. 2,9). Here, these words apply fully. However, we can and should reverently inquire into the mystery of the Immaculata and try to express it with words provided by our intelligence using its own proper powers. Who then are you, O Immaculate conception? Not God, of course, because he has no beginning. Not an angel, created directly out of nothing. Not Adam, formed out of the dust of the earth (Gen. 2,7). Not Eve, molded from Adam’s rib (Gen. 2,21). Not the Incarnate Word, who exists before all ages, and of whom we should use the word “conceived” rather than “conception”. Humans do not exist before their conception, so we might call them created “conceptions.” But you, O Mary, are different from all other children of Eve. They are conceptions stained by original sin; whereas you are the unique, Immaculate Conception. Everything which exists, outside of God himself, since it is from God and depends on him in every way, bears within itself some semblance to its Creator; there is nothing in any creature which does not betray this resemblance, because every created thing is an effect of the Primal cause. It is true that the words we use to speak of created realities express the divine perfections only in a halting, limited and analogical manner. They are only a more or less distant echo- as are the created realities that they signify- of the properties of God himself. Would not “conception” be an exception to this rule? No; there is never any such exception. The Father begets the Son; the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son. These few words sum up the mystery of life of the Most Blessed Trinity and of all the perfections in creatures which are nothing else but echoes, a hymn of praise, a many-hued tableau, of this primary and most wondrous of all mysteries. We must perforce use our customary vocabulary, since it is all we have; but we must never forget that our vocabulary is very inadequate. Who is the Father? What is his personal life like? It consists in begetting, eternally; because he begets his Son from the beginning, and forever. Who is the son? He is the Begotten-One because from the beginning and for all eternity he is begotten by the Father. And who is the Holy Spirit? The flowering of the love of the Father and the Son. If the fruit of created love is a created conception, then the fruit of divine Love, that prototype of all created love, is necessarily a divine “conception.” The Holy Spirit is, therefore, the “uncreated, eternal conception,” the prototype of all the conceptions that multiply life throughout the whole universe. The Father begets; the Son is begotten; the Spirit is the “conception” that springs from their love; there we have the intimate life of the three Persons by which they can be distinguished one from another. But they are united in the oneness of their Nature, of their divine existence. The spirit is, then this thrice holy “conception,” this infinitely holy, Immaculate Conception. Everywhere in this world we notice action, and the reaction which is equal but contrary to it; departure and return; going away and coming back; separation and reunion. The separation always looks foreword to union, which is creative. All this is simply an image of the Blessed Trinity in the activity of creatures. Union means love, creative love. Divine activity, outside the Trinity itself, follows the same pattern. First, God creates the universe; that is something like a separation. Creatures, by following the natural law implanted in them by God, reach their perfection, become like him, and go back to him. Intelligent creatures love him in the conscious manner; through this love they unite themselves more and more closely with him, and so find their way back to him. The creature most completely filled with this love, filled with God himself, was the Immaculata, who never contracted the slightest stain of sin, who never departed in the least from God’s will. United to the Holy Spirit as his spouse, she is one with God in an incomparably more perfect way than can be predicated of any other creature. What sort of union is this? It is above all an interior union, a union of her essence with the “essence” of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her. This was true from the first instant of her existence. It was always true; it will always be true. In what does this life of the Sprit in Mary consist? He himself is uncreated Love in her; the Love of the Father and of the Son, the Love by which God loves himself, the very love of the Most Holy Trinity. He is a fruitful Love, a “Conception.” Among creatures made in God’s image the union brought about by married love is the most intimate of all (cf. Mt. 19,6). In a much more precise, more interior, more essential manner, the Holy Spirit lives in the soul of the Immaculata, in the depths of her very bring. He makes her fruitful, from the very first instant of her existence, all during her life, and for all eternity. This eternal “Immaculate Conception” (which is the Holy Spirit) produces in an immaculate manner divine life itself in the womb (or depths) of Mary’s soul, making her the Immaculate Conception, the human Immaculate Conception. And the virginal womb of Mary’s body is kept sacred for him; there he conceives in time- because everything that is material occurs in time- the human life of the man-God. And so the return to God (which is love), that is to say the equal and contrary reaction, follows a different path from that found in creation. The path of creation goes from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit; this return trail goes from the Spirit through the Son back to the Father; in other words, by the Spirit the Son becomes incarnate in the Womb of the Immaculata; and through this Son love returns to the Father. And she (the Immaculata), grafted into the Love of the Blessed Trinity, becomes from the first moment of her existence and forever thereafter the “complement of the Blessed Trinity”. In the Holy Spirit’s union with Mary we observe more than the love of two beings; in one there is all the love of the Blessed Trinity; in the other, all of creation’s love. So it is that in this union heaven and earth are joined; all of heaven with all the earth, the totality of eternal love with the totality of created love. It is truly the summit of love. At Lourdes, the Immaculata did not say of herself that she had been conceived immaculately, but, as St. Bernadette repeated, “Que soy era immaculada councepciou”: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” If among human beings the wife takes the name of her husband because she belongs to him, is one with him, becomes equal to him and is, with him, the source of new life, with how much greater reason should the name of the Holy Spirit, who is the divine Immaculate Conception, be used as the name of her in whom he lives as uncreated Love, the principle of life in the whole supernatural order of grace?” Who Then Are You, O Immaculate Conception - St. Maximilian Kolbe
What a meditation! O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. St Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us. Thank you, Sam, for posting.
