'stainless power the Immaculate by conception'

Dear Edward,
Thank you for the Poems from your Retreat.
Especially timely for the 8th December, and happy to share.
In Dno.
Donald

Stainless and powerfullest     

Mary, immaculate,

enjoyed transcendent consistency

with the highest force of spirit and mind

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: edward ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Saturday, 8 December 2012, 22:36
Subject: Three New Poems

Dear  Father Donald,

Today ... wish to see the
three latest poems (written during a few days' retreat).  ... We
have only had a small amount of snow on a few occasions, and it seems
to revert back to temperatures above freezing.
I am getting things in  order for my restarting (with help) of the
web-site. I have had to buy a new h.p. computer which seems excellent
and the price is not too high. I had to have a USB connection for the
Chromebox and that comes at a very low price from Holland.
Blessings and best wishes in Domino,
fr Edward O.P.

Stainless and powerfullest

Mary, immaculate,

enjoyed transcendent consistency

with the highest force of spirit and mind,

always mounting and nourished by God,

by Whom  she was called without ceasing,

ever mounting among recipient hierarchies,

deified from her conception.

Conceived as being daughter of Zion

in the shade of the unfinished Temple,

built like its predecessors on

Mount Moriah where God

tested Abraham to the limits:

tested and therefore prepared and strengthened.

Moriah, also the site where Melchisedech prophetically sacrificed

unbloodily with the breadiness of bread and the wineness of wine.

She would bear a victim shedding his own blood;

all was here to bear, to nurture, to instruct, to protect,

then to hear and learn,

to spend all her strength at the Cross

for three darkest hours –

hours of judgement on the priests who were spiritually blind

and on their Roman masters who had betrayed the Roman law,

abdicating from the truth, making their juridical process a cynical mockery.

That strength, consistent, and sacrifice-complaisant,

when a fallen creature judged its Creator guilty

to appease the envy of immoveable consciences, which would meet

a judgement of doom when an exaltation of implacable justice

would find those accusers guilty.

So in its hidden but unperceived stainless power

the Immaculate by conception

would contain in her heart the greatness of this crime,

they dried up (but she fully perceptive)

from whose descendents a trickle would,

over centuries of self-willed isolation,

pass over to become adoptive sons

in the Mystical Body, through the birth-pangs

of its Mother, Zion's begotten daughter:

herself the bridge from Old to New,

each undergoing a Pasch of total renewal.

So was Mary established in joy, the replacement mother for Eve.

A creature destined as world-carrier and -renewer,

renewed in her by her free-consenting.

With power greater than all monarchs and rulers,

holding the key to the key and turning together,

with her Son and his Vicar, united as one,

in the exaltation of the demure figure

painted by Michelangelo,

as turning aside and not seeing the judgement,

yet fully aware.

Steadfast in faith in a breakthrough of love

as it was from her beginning,

as the ensouling of her own flesh

divinely not humanly occasioned;

homely and all-embracing each evolutionised human,

as the end-product, processual and purposeful for history's duration,

formalised as time.

Once chosen and predestined without hesitation giving her consent

to mother the single body of her Son

and sought with judgment unlimited participants

of transcendentalising glory without end

as humanity's heavenly crowning with her own.

6 December 2012

Stykkishólmur - Retreat 2

Immaculate Conception - Community Mass. Homily by Fr. Aelred

    

8 December.Solemnity of the Feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception, which we celebrate today.
Community Mass. Homily by Fr. Aelred

Immaculate Conception

Our Lady’s greatness consisted in her total availability to God. Many are not available to God. they are too full of their own plans. No doubt, Mary too had her own plans for her life and she might have said so to the Angel. But what she said was, ‘It’s is not what I want that matters. Let what God wants done to me’.

Mary made a complete gift of herself to God, and accepted the task he gave her. Even though she didn’t understand all the implications of it, she trusted that God would give her all the help she needed.

Some people tend to see Mary as too passive, not sufficiently self-assertive. But Mary was receptive, not completely passive in God’s hands. After all, God didn’t order her to become the mother of Jesus; God asked for her consent. Mary was a free agent. She didn’t have to say ‘yes’ She could have said ‘no’.

Mary was also a strong woman, with great powers of endurance. She seemed always capable at renewing herself, no matter what misfortune hit her. She knew what oppression was when she couldn’t find a room in which to give birth to Jesus. She lived as a refugee in a strange land. She knew the pain of having a child who doesn’t follow the accepted path, and the agony of seeing her only Son executed as a criminal. Many women throughout the ages have found plenty that they can identify in her life.

A brief look at the readings for today’s Liturgy shows that in the passage from Genesis, the Mother of the redeemer is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the Serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin. In later OT passages she is the virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, whose name shall be called Emmanuel.

She stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from him. As Vatican II tells us ‘After a long period of waiting the times are fulfilled in her, the exalted Daughter of Sion and the new plan of Salvation is established, when the Son of God has taken human nature from her, that he might in the mysteries of his flesh free us from sin’.

In the Second Reading, Paul tells us that we were all chosen to be holy and spotless in Christ before the world began. This applies in its fullness for the mother who would give birth to Jesus Christ himself. The Angels greeting at the annunciation says she is filled with grace, always open to the working of the Holy Spirit.

Luke’s Gospel is about the annunciation too and not about Mary’s own conception, but they are linked. Jesus Christ comes to us as the Saviour who frees humanity from sin. Since Mary was human she had also to be freed from sin.

For centuries theologians wrestled with the problem of reconciling Mary’s sinlessness from the moment her conception with her need for redemption like this. For us, Christ’s death freed us from our sins. For Mary, Christ’s death preserved her from sin. She is perfectly redeemed.

COMMENT: Knox. Immaculate Conception of Our Lady

SEMICOLONS. COMMENT:


Ronald Knox, in this short Homily, uses the surprising number of SEMICOLONS - to count; 15 occurrences of ; (semicolon) !
In the previous Post gives learning about cyber space date.
Ronnie Knox seems to give us expert example of semicolons in punctuation, pre-basic education?
I will enjoy this execise in punctuation, to dust my addled brain.

8 December Immaculate Conception of Our Lady First Reading From the letter of Paul to the Romans (5:12-21) Second Reading For the Night Office of Immaculate BVM the Monastic ....

___________

How to use a semicolon - The Oatmeal  

theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

... punctuation on earth. Comics: Random Most Popular All Cats Grammar Food Animals Tech · How to use a semicolon, the most feared punctuation on earth.

Immaculate Conception of Our Lady [Post from 2010]

Snow visiting us again in 2012

8 December

Immaculate Conception of Our Lady

First Reading

From the letter of Paul to the Romans (5:12-21)

Second Reading

For the Night Office of Immaculate BVM the Monastic Lectionary had a selection of four Readings, two by converts, (Knox and Newman) and two Benedictines, (Hedley and Ullathorne).

Pure and fresh snow-scape
even through grubby window glass and camera lens.
A lesson of the Immaculate

At present, the favourite of authors is Ronald Knox, as below: 

From a sermon by Ronald Knox (University and Plain Sermons pages 402-405).

• The feast of our Lady's Immaculate Conception, which we celebrate today, is the promise and the earnest of Christmas; our salvation is already in the bud. As the first green shoot heralds the approach of spring, in a world that is frost-bound and seems dead; so in a world of great sinfulness and of utter despair that spotless conception heralds the restoration of man's innocence. As the shoot gives unfailing promise of the flower which is to .spring from it, this conception gives unfailing promise of the virgin birth. Life had come into the world again, supernatural life, not of man's choosing or of man's fashioning. And it grew there unmarked by human eyes; no angels sang over the hills to celebrate it, no shepherds left their flocks to come and see; no wise men were beckoned by the stars to witness that prodigy. And yet the first Advent had begun. Our Lady, you see, is the consummation of the Old Testament; with her, the cycle of history begins anew. When God created the first Adam, he made his preparations beforehand; he fashioned a paradise ready for him to dwell in. And when he restored our nature in the second Adam, once more there was a preparation to be made beforehand. He fashioned a paradise for the second Adam to dwell in, and that paradise was the body and soul of our blessed Lady, immune from the taint of sin, Adam's curse. It was winter still in all the world around; but in the quiet home where Saint Anne gave birth to her daughter, spring had begun.   
• Man's winter, God's spring; the living branch growing from the dead root; for that, year by year, we Christians give thanks to God when Advent comes round. It is something that has happened once for all; we look for no further redemption, no fresh revelation, however many centuries are to roll over this earth before the skies crack above us and our Lord comes in judgment. Yet there are times in history when the same mood comes upon us, even upon us Christians; the same mood of despair in which the world, Jewish and heathen, was sunk at the time when Jesus Christ was born. There are times when the old landmarks seem obliterated, and the old certainties by which we live have deserted us; the world seems to have exhausted itself, and has no vigor left to face its future; the only forces which seem to possess an y energy are those which make for disruption and decay. The world's winter, and it is always followed by God's spring.    
• Behold, I make all things new, said our Lord to the saint of the Apocalypse; let us rejoice, on this feast of the Immaculate Conception, in the proof and pledge he has given us of that inexhaustible fecundity which belongs only to his grace. And let us ask our blessed Lady to win for us, in our own lives, that continual renewal of strength and holiness which befits our supernatural destiny. Fresh graces, not soiled by the memory of past failure; fresh enterprise, to meet the conditions of a changing world; fresh hope, to carry our burdens beyond the shifting scene of this present world into the changeless repose of eternity.

Vision beyond grimy window glass.
R. Knox. The purity of the elemental space, times ans seasons
in his Plain Sermon.  

Personal computers, the Internet, and digital databases for choosing reproductions of artworks did not yet exist.

Saturday, 08 December 2012 Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 MAGNIFICAT is more and more thankful  to us, not merely for this superior 'Missalette', but also making us acquainted  with the cyberspace of computer technology.

This Artwork page bridges the gaps that we also feel that our 'only search engine was our brain', - "...personal computers, the Internet, and digital databases for choosing reproductions of artworks did not yet exist."

Thank you.

Oh! The adorable babe!

Artwork of the front cover.  

The cover of MAGNIFICAT for this month of December 2012 is exactly the same as the one that appeared on the first issue of MAGNIFICAT in France twenty years ago, in December 1992. I remember in those days that personal computers, the Internet, and digital databases for choosing reproductions of artworks did not yet exist. Instead, one had to go to photo agencies or museums and comb through cases of large "Ektachrome" slides, as they were called. The only available database for such work was one's own knowledge, and the only search engine was your brain. On that particular day, I was there with Sister Isabelle-Marie Brault, C.S.A. (t 2011), sitting behind a slide projector. Our task: to choose, from among a dozen Ektachromes I had pre-selected, the cover for the first issue of MAGNIFICAT. 

When Neri di Bicci's Virgin and Child appeared on the screen, Sister Isabelle-Marie let out a cry of joy: "Oh! The adorable babe!" In that instant, I realised that the grace of art is so fertile that it can elicit sublime truths from our most spontaneous, flesh-and-blood expressions. And I made the decision that not only would every cover of MAGNIFICAT offer a work of art for our contemplation, but each issue would also feature a commentary on a masterpiece of sacred art. Yes, Neri di Bicci definitely knew how to depict an adorable babe, a truly irresistible tiny tot, with his golden locks and little button nose. Yet now behold his mother, how the Blessed Virgin Mary truly adores this adorable babe-as is fitting for one whose heart adores God alone! Merry Christmas!

• Pierre-Marie Dumont 

Ambrose Analogies on streams and rivers

Friday, 07 December 2012

 SAINT AMBROSEBishop and Doctor of the Church
(c. 339 - 397)  

The Breviary Reading  today takes the spotlight.
 www.universalis.com   

Reading	A letter of St Ambrose

You win the people over with the grace of your words

You have entered upon the office of bishop. Sitting at the helm of the Church, you pilot the ship against the waves. Take firm hold of the rudder of faith so that the severe storms of this world cannot disturb you. The sea is mighty and vast, but do not be afraid, for as Scripture says: he has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters.

  The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved. The Church’s foundation is unshakeable and firm against the assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbour of salvation for all in distress. Although the Church is tossed about on the sea, it rides easily on rivers, especially those rivers that Scripture speaks of: The rivers have lifted up their voice. These are the rivers flowing from the heart of the man who is given drink by Christ and who receives from the Spirit of God. When these rivers overflow with the grace of the Spirit, they lift up their voice.

  There is also a stream which flows down on God’s saints like a torrent. There is also a rushing river giving joy to the heart that is at peace and makes for peace. Whoever has received from the fullness of this river, like John the Evangelist, like Peter and Paul, lifts up his voice. Just as the apostles lifted up their voices and preached the Gospel throughout the world, so those who drink these waters begin to preach the good news of the Lord Jesus.

  Drink, then, from Christ, so that your voice may also be heard. Store up in your mind the water that is Christ, the water that praises the Lord. Store up water from many sources, the water that rains down from the clouds of prophecy.

  Whoever gathers water from the mountains and leads it to himself or draws it from springs, is himself a source of dew like the clouds. Fill your soul, then, with this water, so that your land may not be dry, but watered by your own springs.

  He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others. So Scripture says: If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.

  Therefore, let your words be rivers, clean and limpid, so that in your exhortations you may charm the ears of your people. And by the grace of your words win them over to follow your leadership. Let your sermons be full of understanding. Solomon says: The weapons of the understanding are the lips of the wise; and in another place he says: Let your lips be bound with wisdom. That is, let the meaning of your words shine forth, let understanding blaze out. See that your addresses and expositions do not need to invoke the authority of others, but let your words be their own defence. Let no word escape your lips in vain or be uttered without depth of meaning.

The School of Alexandria - Part 1/Ch 3 - Allegorical Interpretation of ...  

www.copticchurch.net/topics/patrology/.../I.../chapter3.html

St. Clement of Alexandria is considered the first Christian theologian (writer) who ... to a figure of speech that Cicero defined as a "continuous stream of metaphors. .... was the only Christian interpretation, afterwards Origen, St. Ambrose and the ... Most obvious analogiesconcern the flood and the ark, the liberation of the ...

First Week of Advent. Wednesday Year 1 Theodore of Mopsuestia

Night Office -Second Reading.
I listened to Fr. H... at the Lectern.  Theodore of Mopsuestia was too daunting at that hour. He was difficult even later. Another effort it made it possible to browse the more spacious Internet context below.

Early Church Texts

“Theodore of Mopsuestia On The Incarnation - Greek Text with English translation”

De Incarnatione, 7

Although it is in the future that we shall be perfectly controlled in body and soul by the Spirit, yet even now we have a partial foretaste of this in that we are so assisted by the Spirit that we are not forced to succumb to the reasonings of the soul. In the same way although it was in the end that the Lord had God the Word working in him so perfectly and completely that they were inseparably joined in every action, yet even before that he had the Word bringing to perfection in him to the highest possible degree all that he must do; in that period before the cross he was being given free room because of the necessity to achieve virtue on our behalf by his own will, though even then he was being stirred on by the Word and was being strengthened for the perfect fulfilment of what needed to be done. He had received union with him right from the start at the moment of his formation in the womb. Then at the age when men normally begin to be able to distinguish between good and bad, indeed even before that age, he demonstrated far more rapidly and quickly than other people this power of discrimination. This ability to discriminate does not arise in the same way and at the same moment for each person. Some with greater insight achieve the goal more quickly; others acquire it with the help of training over a longer period. He was exceptional in comparison with all others and it came to him at an earlier age than is normal; this is not surprising since even at the human level he was bound to have something extra by virtue of the fact that even his birth was not by the normal method of intercourse between a man and a woman but he was formed by the divine working of the Spirit.

Thanks to his union with God the Word, which by foreknowledge he was deemed worthy to receive when God the Word from above united him to himself, he had an outstanding inclination to the good. For all these reasons, as soon as he was in a position to discriminate, he had a great antipathy to evil and attached himself to the good with unqualified affection. In this he received the cooperative help of God the Word proportionate to his own native will and so remained thereafter unaffected by any change to the worse. On the one hand this was the set of his own mind, but it was also a matter of this purpose of his being preserved by the cooperative help of God the Word. So he proceeded with the utmost ease to the highest peak of virtue, whether it were a matter of keeping the law before his baptism or of living the life of grace after it; in doing so he provided a type of that life for us also, becoming a path to that goal for us. Then in the end after his resurrection and assumption into heaven, he showed himself worthy of the union even on the basis of his own will, though he had received the union even before this by the good pleasure of his Maker at the time of his very creation. Thus finally he provides a perfect demonstration of the union; he has no activity separate or cut off from God the Word, but he has God the Word as the effective agent of all his actions by virtue of the Word’s union with him. 

Responsorial

Like a light shining before him, the man went ahead of the Lord.

+ John prepared a way in the desert, pointed to the Lamb of God, and enlightened the people’s minds.

V. John was in the desert preaching  a baptism of repentance. +John

Biography

Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia, (c.350-428) stands out as the pre-eminent exponent of the School of Antioch's literal, historical and rational emphases in exegesis and of its staunch defence of Christ's humanity. At his death, he was hailed as one of the outstanding, prolific biblical theologians of his time. However, after his works and person were later condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, he is known today primarily as the "Father of Nestorianism." This addition to the Early Church Fathers series provides in one place new extensive translations of Theodore's major extant works that have not been available in English up unto the present. It also summarizes the secondary literature and discusses at length the fundamental features of his theological thinking, especially regarding his method of exegesis and his functional stress on the union of Christ's natures as occurring in 'one common prosopon.' Frederick G. McLeod presents passages from Theodore's major works 'On the Incarnation' and his 'Cathechetical Homilies;' his commentaries on Psalm 8, Adam's creation, John, Philippians 2, Galatians, Ephesians, and Colossians; and his rejection of the allegorists and Apollinaris, as well as providing all the anathemas of Constantinople II against Theodore's works and person. This book will be invaluable to any scholar who wishes to read firsthand what this influential and controversial figure has actually written.
____________________________________________________________________________

De Incarnatione, 7

If we can discover how the indwelling is effected, then we shall know both the mode in which it is effected and also what makes for differentiation within that mode.

St. Sabbas

Wednesday, 05 December 2012

SAINT SABAS
Abbot
(439-532)

        St. Sabas, one of the most renowned patriarchs of the monks of Palestine, was born in the year 439, near Cæsarea. In order to settle a dispute which had arisen between some of his relatives in regard to the administration of his estate, while still young he forsook the world and entered a monastery, wherein he became a model of fervor.

        When Sabas had been ten years in this monastery, being eighteen years old, he went to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and attached himself to a monastery then under control of St. Euthymius; but on the death of the holy abbot our Saint sought the wilderness, where he chose his dwelling in a cave on the top of a high mountain, at the bottom of which ran the brook Cedron.

        After he had lived here five years, several came to him, desiring to serve God under his direction. He was at first unwilling to consent, but finally founded a new monastery of persons all desirous to devote themselves to praise and serve Goa without interruption.

        His great sanctity becoming known, he was ordained priest, at the age of fifty-three, by the patriarch of Jerusalem, and made Superior-General of all the anchorites of Palestine.

        He lived to be ninety-four, and died on the 5th of December, 532.

Lives of the Saints, by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. ed. [1894]

Dom Donald's Blog: Saints Mar Saba's Monastery

04 Dec 2009  - see previous Post

St. Savvas (Savas, Sabas, Sabbas) the Sanctified (Feast Day - December 5)

http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/12/saint-savvas-sanctified.html

COMMENT: ... his own particular melody

Gabrielle's being moved by Mass sung in five parts, leads the Lord to higher realms. In turn the monastic chant inspires the life of praise. 

Monastic community has its own regular choir observance of the regular Hours.

St Benedict Opus Dei Cathedral Norwich 

St. Benedict calls this the Opus Dei, (The Work of God).    

HE, (Christ, the Beloved, Imitation.), “in heaven you hear My praises sung in billions of parts,”

If the blessed ones each has his own particular MELODY.

The monk’s ‘own particular melody’ sings already from his monastery choir stall.!

The Opus Dei  (The Work of God) was nothing more nor less than the monk's daily prayer, vocal because Saint Benedict, as a Christian, assumed that his monks must serve God with their voices, their gestures, and their attitudes of prayer; made in common because, as we shall see, every important action of his monks was to he done in common. 

http://www.osb.org/gen/knowles/dkb02.html 

+ + + 

Weblog HE AND i, Gabrielle B.

                                        Background - Eliz Wang

1949

December 11 -  End of the novena to the Immaculate. I was deeply moved by the Mass sung in five parts.

          "What will you say in heaven when you hear My praises sung in billions of parts? Each of the blessed ones has his own particular melody. "

+ + + +

GREGORIAN CHANT AS A PARADIGM OF SACRED MUSIC

http://musicasacra.com/gregorian-chant-as-a-paradigm-of-sacred-music/ 

BY WILLIAM MAHRT

We could all agree that the liturgy should be beautiful, yet this is a question that rarely receives much attention, and this lack of attention has meant that some important aspects of the role of music have been forgotten. But what constitutes the beauty of the liturgy? What, even, do we mean by “beauty” in the context of the liturgy? The scholastics gave complementary definitions of beauty, “those things which when seen please,”1 and “splendor formae.”2 The first describes what happens when beauty is apprehended—delight; the second gets at what it is that delights us—showing forth in a clear and radiant way the very nature of the thing. In the liturgy, music has a fundamental role in showing forth its nature, a role which traditional liturgical documents support....

'...his own particular melody'

                                        Background - Eliz Wang

Weblog HE AND i, Gabrielle B.

1949

December 11 -  End of the novena to the Immaculate. I was deeply moved by the Mass sung in five parts.

          "What will you say in heaven when you hear My praises sung in billions of parts? Each of the blessed ones has his own particular melody. "

HE AND i Gabrielle B. Dec 1, 1949

First Sunday of Advent. Community Mass.
Fr. Hugh (Homily) quoted Merton this morning, who had complained to the Senior Monks at Gethsemani Abbey, that the Novices were not keeping the "SILENCE".
Fr. Louis (Merton), Novice Director, commented, "Silence begins when you realize someone else is speaking."
Latest Weblog Post gives the same wavelength, "the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar urged Catholic thinkers to develop la théologie a genoux, a theology on one's knees." 
Today, even better, is to listen to the speaking in the "HE AND i" communion of Gabrielle. The listening here 'realizing someone is speaking!'   

Weblog HE AND i, Gabrielle B.

1949

December 1 -  Holy hour.

•  "Concentrate on going higher, always higher in the Holy Trinity. This is your Family, your End and your Centre. Your Home, too, so you must take up your residence there. (. . . )
  
• Be grateful to be invited to it. Dwell on the thought of it with praise and song, remembering your nothingness and the tenderness of the invitation. It's a long time since the invitation was sent out, isn't it? Don't you think you should respond by focalising all your desires on this one end? What a blessed Home - the heart of the Trinity opening up all its unutterable delights for you in the love untold of the Father and the Son! How can you refrain from thinking of it every day with impetuous longing?
  
• Ask your heavenly mother who understood better to lead you there. She is the bride of the Spirit, the mother of the Son, the daughter of the Father on whom her immaculate heart was forever centred. Let her go with you before the Holy Trinity to whom you belong, free though you are.
  
• You are thinking, 'But these three Persons are so great. What can I say - I, who am so little?'
  
• Have you forgotten that it is your weakness that attracts your God? Then give Him your utmost confidence - boundless trust, you understand? He can give you everything. He owns everything and is only waiting for your call. Be sure of Him. Aspire to reach Him. Thirst for Him with a thirst that can never be quenched. Your loving insistence honours Him greatly. Don't be like the silent ones who consider themselves too unworthy to ask for magnificent favours. I tell you, they will never overcome their unworthiness. Be like the humble ones who expose their poverty and count on their Christ to transform them at each confession, because He hears their cry of regret and turns it into a hymn for His glory. Don't restrain your heart's upsoarings, My child. Come more often into the secret place of the Most High. That's where your permanent home will be. "

December: The Month of the Immaculate Conception

By Scott P. Richert, About.com GuideDecember 1, 2011

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Read about where true Christians differ from those who are not.

During Advent, as we prepare for the birth of Christ, we also celebrate one of the great feasts of the Catholic Church. TheSolemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8) is not only a celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary but a foretaste of our own redemption. It is such an important feast that the Church has declared the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception a Holy Day of Obligation.

In keeping the Blessed Virgin free from the stain of sin from the moment of her conception, God presents us with a glorious example of what mankind was meant to be. Mary is truly the second Eve, because, like Eve, she entered the world without sin. Unlike Eve, she remained sinless throughout her life--a life that she dedicated fully to the will of God. The Eastern Fathers of the Church referred to her as "without stain" (a phrase that appears frequently in the Eastern liturgies and hymns to Mary); in Latin, that phrase is immaculatus: "immaculate."

The Immaculate Conception was not, as many people believe, a precondition for Christ's act of redemption but the result of it. Standing outside of time, God knew that Mary would humbly submit herself to His will, and in His love for this perfect servant, He applied to her at the moment of her conception the redemption, won by Christ, that all Christians receive at theirBaptism.

It is appropriate, then, that the Church has long declared the month in which the Blessed Virgin gave birth to the Savior of the world as the Month of the Immaculate Conception.