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.