A Homily for the feast of the Immaculate Conception

A Homily for the feast of the Immaculate Conception

+ The fact that the rubrics of the Missal permit the feast of the Immaculate Conception to supplant the Second Sunday of Advent—with its haunting question of St John the Baptist: “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”—is quite extraordinary. Older rubrics, and even newer ones, would retain the Advent Sunday and transfer the Immaculate Conception to the next free day (tomorrow) as is the rule for other first-class feasts. Why, then, this exception?

The answer is not found in the fact that it is a Marian feast. Normally feasts of Our Lady rightly give way to the Sundays of Lent and Advent and to feasts of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. She does not stand in His way!

Rather, the answer to this seemingly odd rubric may be found in that this particular feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is itself intrinsically ‘advental’, as it were. That is to say that this feast is itself essentially about the preparation for the coming of the Lord—specifically, the preparation by Almighty God of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the bearing of His Son as man by ensuring that she was free from the stain of original sin and was thus a worthy vessel to bring Him into the world.

This, as the Church teaches, is a singular privilege given to one human person in the entire history of the human race—only one person after the Fall, that is, for Adam and Eve were created sinless, and only their abuse of the freedom with which God the Father so lovingly trusted them brought sin into being. This privilege granted to the Virgin of Nazareth makes her the model of unfallen humanity, of humanity in the state in which it was created in the image and likeness of God Himself.

It is very important to underline this. The Blessed Virgin Mary is not somehow ‘super-human’. She is humanity as it should be. She is not a demi-goddess or a person who is so privileged that she is simply beyond our reach or comprehension. No. She is a human person with free will as are we all. She is singularly privileged, certainly, But she is ‘one of us’, as it were, she is the “first fruit of our race,” specially prepared to receive the Incarnate Son of God and to bring Him into the world.

Rightly, then, do we utterly maculate creatures seek to imitate her virtues as they are presented to us in the various feasts and seasons of the Church’s year—from her willingness to accept God’s utterly astonishing plan for her life at the Annunciation, through to her silent suffering at the foot of the Cross on Calvary. And rightly do we turn to her and ask her intercession when we need help in saying “yes” to God, or in persevering in the face of suffering, etc. The Church’s traditional treasury of Marian feasts and devotions is a rich storehouse from which we ought not fail to draw. For the Blessed Virgin Mary is ‘one of us’; she is ‘on our side’, as it were. She is there to help by her example and by her prayers.

And rightly too do we turn to the Immaculate Mother of God on this feast in Advent as we concern ourselves with preparing for the coming of her Son at Christmas. We, who do not share her privilege and who are only too used to the stain of sin and the damage it does in our lives and in the world—be that due to our own sins or to those of others—need help. We need encouragement. And if Our Lord is to come to us this Christmas we need to be appropriately prepared. We need to be free from sin.

The Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady was and is a singular privilege about which it is not for us to quarrel. Almighty God may choose whomever He wishes for His purposes.

Regardless, by virtue of His saving death on the Cross, freedom from sin is offered by Our Lord to each of us through the Sacrament of Baptism, and if we sin gravely after Baptism, through the Sacrament of Confession. After a good, integral confession, our souls are as pure as on the day of our baptism—now matter how seriously we have sinned. Hence, we may worthily receive Our Lord in Holy Communion. Hence we may go out anew bearing Christ and witnessing to Him and to the Truth in the different circumstances of our daily life. We may not have been immaculately conceived, but when our souls are cleansed by the absolution received after a good confession and we are in a state of grace, we lack nothing necessary worthily to receive Our Lord.

In celebrating the Immaculate Virgin Mary on this Second Sunday of Advent, then, the Church is wisely calling us to that fundamental preparation without which Christ coming to us this Christmas will be impeded if not blocked. Our Mother is calling us to attend to the necessary cleansing of our souls through a good, humble, honest confession of our sins.

May the humble, Immaculate Virgin Mary intercede for us!

May her example of trust, faith and perseverance give us the courage so to do! +