The Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady, Mother of the Church,
St. Joseph, our patron saints and guardian angels,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Lord today in the Gospel is talking about building our house on solid rock.
And of course, we can understand that to be His words, His teaching,
and to the degree that we follow our Lord,
then we are building our houses on solid rock.
Not only as individuals who follow the teaching of the Church,
but even as society follows the teaching of the Church,
then you might say that society's house is built on solid rock.
If you follow, rather, the teaching or the ways of the world,
or the doctrine of the devil,
then your house is going to be in shaky ground,
on sand, because it's going to fall apart.
And that's what we can see a lot in our world today,
especially in society, in our culture.
The more and more it goes away from the teaching of the Church,
from the teaching of Christ, that's what we always have to understand.
The teaching of the Church is the teaching of Christ.
It's not the doctrine of man.
It's the doctrine of the God-man.
And to the degree that we do that,
then we will have to understand that the teaching of the Church is the teaching of Christ.
We will have peace and concord.
We will have right order.
If we don't, then we have disorder.
And we have a lot of that lately.
But one of the things that, as we're, especially in this time of preparing for Advent,
and preparing for, of course, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception,
I think we see the importance of Our Lady, and especially those doctrines,
and dogmas of Our Lady, so important in holding our faith together.
Especially the Immaculate Conception.
As you know, if anybody reads the back of our Novena pamphlet,
it has that quote by Pope John Paul II,
who blessed soon to be Saint John Paul II,
about how the Immaculate Conception, that dogma, is a synthesis of our faith.
You might say,
if you want to know one teaching of the Church that kind of comprises everything,
it's the Immaculate Conception, because Pope John Paul II wrote this.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception may be said to be a marvelous doctrinal synthesis of Christian faith.
It includes, in fact, the basic truths of Revelation,
from the formation of our first parents in the state of original justice,
to that sin whereby they compromised their own situation and that of their descendants,
from the initial promise to Adam and Eve in the Proto-Evangelium,
to its wonderful realization through the incarnation of the Word in the most pure womb of Mary,
from the desperate condition of a mankind destined to eternal damnation,
to the prospect of final salvation with participation in the very beatitude of God.
Now, it would seem that Pope John Paul II's point would be,
is to the degree that we forget these dogmas of Our Lady, or we don't understand them,
then the Catholic faith, in many ways, is not understood well either.
And I think a perfect example of that is back in the 1990s,
I believe, a bishop got up at the bishop's conference meeting and complained,
what does the Immaculate Conception have to do with Advent?
You know, he thought it was so out of character for the season of Advent
to be celebrating the Immaculate Conception.
And in one sense, you can see that that's pretty much the, in large scope,
the attitude of many in the church today is they just haven't any clue
what Our Lady has to do with anything.
And they don't understand that she is that woman of Genesis 3.15
who's going to crush the head of Satan.
They don't seem to understand Our Lady's role.
In God's plan.
And then they don't really understand God's plan, period.
Because they don't.
It's like a key that kind of opens up these mysteries.
If you go and say, why is this lady, why is this woman
conceived without sin and full of grace from the first moment of her conception?
Then you begin to ponder, well what, all those things connected with her,
her son, must be someone even far great to have such a mother.
And all these things, I think it's like the Immaculate Conception is a barometer
or a litmus test, you might say, of the level of our Catholicism.
If we understand the ramifications of what the Immaculate Conception is and means,
then we kind of have a good grasp of the faith.
And we will probably be on fire for the faith.
You know, even Gerard Manley Hopkins said that,
Blessed John Duns Scotus in his famous poem said that,
Blessed John Duns Scotus set France on fire for Mary without spot.
That he and his teaching of the Immaculate Conception
brought a great fervor to French society in his day.
And that is something that needs to be brought into the Catholic faith
and all across the Western civilization.
The Western world is to be once again on fire for Our Lady,
which will then inflame us with love for the whole,
you might say, the whole picture of what the faith involves.
So if we want to evangelize, and I think St. Maximilian Kolbe
understood that very well, how are we going to re-evangelize
or evangelize to the degree?
Evangelize to the degree that we do it with Our Lady.
If we don't do it with Her, then we will not succeed.
And we won't really grasp what it is we're trying to do
because we don't have the full understanding
and the clear picture of why Our Lady is so important,
not only in the Advent season and Christmas,
but throughout all our whole life.
Because She is the woman who brings us our Redeemer,
and the woman whom Christ has promised that He will bring the victory through her.
So if He says, I'm going to bring the victory through the woman
who's going to crush the head of Satan,
then it seems that we need to be looking into this woman
and coming to know her.
For we know that the Immaculate Conception is a person.
That would be a novel idea just in general,
in our world today, that a conception is a person.
That there would be a lot of improvement
in just many aspects of our society.
But the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
is truly the foundation upon which we should build our house.
Our Lord's teaching especially.
But one particular dogma of the faith that we should have firm
in that little foundation
is the understanding of who the Immaculata is,
as Saint Maximilian Kolbe pondered.
So as we begin, as we are on this journey of Advent
for the coming of Christ,
let us ponder well this mystery
and these times that we have in preparation for the Immaculate Conception.
It is a beautiful and most fitting celebration
to take place during Advent.
Because She
is the sign of our Lord's first coming.
The dawn of salvation
was the Immaculate Conception.
And She is going to be the sign
at His second coming.
For the age of Mary will precede the final days.
And to the degree that we bring that about,
we will bring about truly
the coming of the Lord.
And let us ask Our Lady especially
that we will be prepared.
That we will be a solid house
upon which Christ can build
and can truly come and dwell in us
like He did in Our Lady
who is His house,
His temple.
And from that,
He built His Church.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.