Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
December 8, 2018 – Year C
Readings: Gn 3:9-15, 20 / Ps 98 / Eph 1:3-6, 11-12 / Lk 1:26-38
by Rev. Salvador Añonuevo, Pastor

For today’s feast, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the gospel is about the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Mother with the greeting, “Hail, Full of grace, the Lord is with you,” announcing to her that she would be the mother of God. That’s the beginning of the Immaculate Conception of Jesus, when He was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Mother. We celebrate that feast on March 25th. From March 25th to December 25th is exactly 9 months.

But the Immaculate Conception of Jesus is not the feast that we celebrate today. What we celebrate today is the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mother, when she was conceived in the womb of her mother, St. Anne.

Here is the tricky part. All human beings, including the Blessed Mother, need to be saved, and we only have one Savior: Jesus. Now Jesus wasn’t born yet, and for those of us who have studied theology, this is one of the aspects that wracks our brain. Apparently, the merits of Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection were the reason why the Blessed Mother was saved from the stain of original sin. She needed to be saved. She is not God, but rather, a human being like us.

All of us, as children of our first parents, Adam and Eve, have the stain of original sin, except, of course, Jesus, since He is God, and the Blessed Mother, preserved from sin retroactively by the merits of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection forty-seven years before Jesus was crucified on the cross. Forty-seven years before the Lord offered His life for us, grace was given to the Blessed Mother to stop the stain of sin so she would be born free of original sin.

Why? Because her body would become the tabernacle of God, and God and sin are just like oil and water, or light and darkness. They just do not go together. God could not be in the womb of any human being who had the stain of sin. So the Lord God had to do that. How could it happen? How could sin be erased forty-seven years back? He could do that, because He is God. This is what we have heard in today’s gospel. Nothing is impossible with God. All of you, in one way or another, in different degrees, have realized this in the past, that with God, nothing is impossible.

The Blessed Mother is there to help us understand this good news. Every Saturday is Our Lady’s Saturday, all throughout the year. But today, in a special way, as we gather together, we honor her Immaculate Conception. We celebrate her conception just as we are supposed to celebrate every sign of life, every birth of a human being, from the time of conception to the time of our resurrection from the dead. What also will give us more consolation is that the Blessed Mother is always and will always be there for us. Whenever God’s children have a problem, she is there.

In the stories of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Lady of Lourdes, during those times in history, not only in those countries, but in other parts of the world, God’s children had serious problems. So the Blessed Mother appeared to give a sign to God’s children that God had not forgotten them, that everything would be fine. God, the creator of heaven and earth, the God of the impossible, will always be there for us. And Mary will always lead us to her Son. Every time we ask for her help, may we always remember the Memorare prayer:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone
who fled to thy protection, implored thy help,
or sought thine intercession, was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins, my mother;
to thee do I come,
before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer me.