Genesis 3:9-15; Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12; Luke 1:26-38
Today, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, as the liturgy of the day states, we celebrate a woman fully free, not conditioned by sin. To grasp this mystery of man and his relationship with God instead of starting with sin, we must start with grace.
The first reading reminds us that just as it was a woman (Eve) who brought pain and suffering, the fruit of sin, to the whole world, so it will also be a woman (Mary) who will bring salvation and healing to the world.
The second reading tells us that all of us were called by God to share his love and blessings long before we existed. This is all the more true for Mary, chosen from eternity by God to be the Mother of his Son.
The Gospel describes not Mary’s conception but Jesus’ conception beginning with the moment Mary says her “Yes.” The angel greets her as “full of grace,” filled with God’s love and favor, especially chosen for this moment. This has always been interpreted as indicative of Mary’s total freedom from all stain of sin in her role as “Ark of the Covenant.” Indeed, the incarnate Word was to begin his human existence in an environment untouched by sin.
This page of Luke’s Gospel is full of precise indications: name of God’s envoy, name of the region where he is to go, name of the city, name of a man, indication of his lineage, name of a woman, information about his life project. All this is a sign that God shows up in a precise context, attaches himself to the particular, to clear and well-defined circumstances. Then, there is the announcement which is followed by Mary’s remaining upset. She, like us, before the gratuitous, the totally gratuitous, struggles. But she takes a step: she does not limit her reaction to upset, but asks the question of meaning. The word of God that reaches us always poses a question of meaning.
The answer contains the invitation not to be afraid. The angel knows that the news given is difficult to understand. Then he communicates to Mary an extraordinary event: “Elizabeth, your relative, in her old age has conceived a son … nothing is impossible to God.” Mary says yes! This is the point where freedom comes into play. God’s word to find fulfillment needs our freedom. Mary says, “I am there,” not already to realize herself, but to realize God’s word.

The expression, “full of grace,” so familiar to the Christian people, is a greeting of great depth, for it recalls the greatness of her vocation: she was chosen to be the Mother of God and, because of this, she was preserved from original sin from the very moment of her Conception. The “full of grace” is the name God himself gave her, to indicate that from ever and forever she is the beloved, the one chosen to receive the most precious gift, Jesus, God’s incarnate love.
For good workers…
– Contemplating our Immaculate Mother, so beautiful, so pure, so humble, without any pride or conceit, we can recognize our true destiny, our deepest vocation: to be loved, to be transformed by love, by the beauty of God. God has turned His loving gaze on each of us as He did on Mary, He has chosen us since the creation of the world to be holy and immaculate.
– We can apply each of the readings to our lives. We have often been the cause of sin and pain in other people’s lives. Let us rather seek to be people who bring goodness, charity and healing.
Fr Joby Kavungal RCJ

On the occasion of the Solemnity of the Most Blessed Virgin Immaculate we report an episode from Father Hannibal’s life taken from The Soul of the Father:
He writes: “On February 11, 1905, Pastor Chillè gave us the beautiful statue of Our Lady of Sorrows and Immaculate Conception: two mysteries having relation to February 11. The statue lay abandoned in a closet in the sacristy of the parish of St. Anthony Abbot. (It was then the parish in the Avignon neighborhood, which is now in St. Clement’s instead.)
Father asked for it as a gift and hurried to take it to the Holy Spirit in a wheelchair. Entering the house he went difilely to ring the bell of the meeting, announcing with solicitude the visit of a great Lady, who was waiting at the parlor…. But lo and behold, the great Lady entered carried on her arms, and immediately hurrahs, clapping, prayers. But the statue was very shabby, even its feet were missing: it had to be restored, re-dressed; and so there was the new entrance of Our Lady into the house on Saturday, May 19, 1906.
Father was in Rome, and the sisters imprinted the service on the style used by Father and made their report to Him. He replied, “What you have written to me in your letter about the loving in- gress that our sweetest Mother, Mistress, Teacher and Superior has made again in this fortunate community, has struck the flint of my cold heart and brought forth a few tears! May your Immaculate Sorrowful Mother and Superior bless you, my daughters, disciples and subjects, and fill you with her choicest graces, that you may always grow
in the holy fervor to love, to serve, to please the Heavenly Queen of Hearts! … He goes on to explain what it means to love Our Lady: “The love of the Blessed Virgin consists mainly in the imitation of her virtues, especially humility, illibacy of soul, strong and constant love for Our Lord, zeal for His glory and the health of souls, great charity and gentleness in all encounters.”
He returned to the service done in Messina: “All that you have combined for the reception of the sweetest Mother, was beautiful, inspired and very acceptable to the beautiful Lady and her Divine Son and our good Jesus. I did not deserve to find myself present!”
Father had the statue placed in the corridor next to Mother General’s door, to awaken in the nuns the thought that this is Our Lady’s Vicar; and “there insinuated the habit,” recalls one nun, “of paying homage to her whenever one passed that way. (TUSINO
T., The Soul of the Father – Testimonies, Rome (1973), p. 364) from WWW.RCJ.ORG…