OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 dic 2025

08/12/2025 – Immaculate Conception of Mary

08/12/2025 – Immaculate Conception of Mary

First reading Genesis 3:9–15, 20 from Psalm 97 Second reading Ephesians 1:3–6, 11–12 Gospel Luke 1:26–38

Today we contemplate Mary listening to the voice of God, doing what Eve, the woman who represents us all, failed to do. She represents us because, unfortunately, we are all in her condition. When we hear a Word from God, we first doubt, thinking that our intelligence does not need words from outside, thinking that if God has given us intelligence, we can use it without listening to others. Eve did just that. She doubted God's Word, and, thinking she was wiser and more capable, she gave her consent to those who suggested words of deception.

How many disappointments we would be spared if we listened to God's Word! If today's feast served to make us understand that God, who is love, wants only and always our good, and that we can always trust him, Mary would be happy and would feel truly celebrated.

The one who deceives men, the serpent, is condemned, but the men who consider him worthy of listening to bear the consequences of this great error. The consequences are inherited by all the children of Adam, who suffer greatly from the intrusion of disobedience into human history. How many sins and how much suffering because of these sins!

All moral, spiritual and even physical suffering has its origin in disobedience, in the rejection of the Father's teaching.

How we long, therefore, for a Mother to be given to us to start a new world, a Mother who does not stray from obedience, who does not forget the Word that the Father never ceases to repeat, a Mother who teaches us to listen to God in the depths of our hearts!

Mary listens to the angel of God, asks for help, and makes herself available. The Word must take possession of her in order to be fulfilled through her. The angel announces to her something impossible for man, the fulfilment of God's prophecy, and she does not refuse, but only asks what she can do, how she can be useful.

‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let his word be fulfilled in me’! Mary uttered a phrase that changed the world, transforming it from a house of sin into a temple of grace, from a place of selfishness into a garden of love.

We venerate Mary today as a sign of God's benevolence towards us sinners, as a pledge of our salvation, as a certainty of the gratuitousness of God's love. If Mary was untouched by evil, it is a free gift from God. And it happened for us, who need forgiveness and new life.

By venerating Mary, we venerate the mystery of God's love, always available to us. We venerate her as completely pure, because the love of God manifested in her is complete, full. She is full of grace, because God has given her everything, all the beauty and fidelity of his love. By honouring Mary, our heart regains its right orientation, setting itself on the truest and surest path to conversion to the Father!

Mary, mother in whom humility shines forth, mother who reflects God's faithfulness, remember us in your joy. In you, light finds no shadows; in you, we contemplate the beauty of the Father's love and his plan, which we instead ruin: lead us to salvation, give us the Saviour!