In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today, we celebrate the beautiful solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is also the patroness of the United States. And we understand this dogma, reflecting that from the moment of her conception, God preserved Mary from the stain of original sin, applying to her at her conception the fruits of the merits of His Son would win in His victory, in His triumph on the cross, in the redemption of humanity—that God applied the merits of the redemption to Mary at her conception. And of course, this was to prepare her for her role to become the Mother of the Savior, the Mother of the Son of God, that plan in which God had, in which to vanquish Satan in his, to vanquish the wickedness of Satan in corrupting His creation—that Mary is the new Eve, preserved from sin, who freely chooses to do God’s will and to stay united to God. And that this was to prepare her to receive the Son of God, to be the Ark of the Covenant in which the Incarnation would take place in her most pure womb.
And so this beautiful feast day reminds us of God’s goodness in His eternal love and plan that we are to share in His divine life and that we are created to be with Him forever in heaven, and that He gives us Mary as a model by which we are to pattern our own life. That what she is by nature, St. Maximilian Kolbe said, she is immaculate, we are to become by grace, meaning that we are to become immaculate, that we are to become free from sin and to always choose God, to choose God in His will for us, in His plan for us—that God wants us to imitate His Mother and that Mary is our mother to help us on this path, that we may always choose what God wills for us and that we may always turn away from sin, that we may always turn away from sin and that this is to prepare us for that true life that we are to share in heaven and sharing in God’s divine life and to see God and to be with God forever in heaven.
And so we are to reflect today so beautifully that our Blessed Mother is given to us as a model, that God wants us to imitate her, to become free from sin and to never allow Satan to rule over us or to have dominion over us, but that we truly, freely choose to always do God’s will and to put God first in our life. Our Lady never wavered, never wavered in her faith, in her fiat to God, and so we can ask her today to help us to always imitate her, that we may always repeat her fiat, her yes to God, that we may give God the greatest glory and honor.
We recognize this season of Advent as a time of preparation for God’s greatest gift to us in His Son, and then so beautifully, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is within this season of Advent to help us to see that what God desires from us is to imitate His Mother—that we like her may always do the will of God and to be free from sin, that we may truly share in God’s divine life to the fullness.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.