OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 dic 2023

08/12/2023 – Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary

08/12/2023 – Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary

Reading 1 GN 3,9-15.20 Psalm 97 Reading 2 EPH 1,3-6.11-12 Gospel LK 1,26-38

Our eyes look at Mary. Today we look at her as a person who is rich in a gift we envy her for, nay: we are happy that at least she has received this gift, as a warranty for the hope we have of being able to receive it too. The gift is the fundamental purity, the one Adam had lost and none of his children had been able to find again, apart from the Son Himself, the new Adam. Mary is part of this great gift of God’s, which is highlighting the infinite selflessness of His love.

Mary has not inherited from Adam the basic tendency to be suspicious of God, to doubt Him, to desire of disobeying Him. This is why today we rejoice: Mary, chosen to be the Mother, mother of the Son of God and therefore of all those who join Him in a single body, is not touched by sin. The fact that this is a gift she received does not mean she did not have any difficulty living it, she has not been put to the test, that the devil has spared her the temptations. We thank God because she was without sin, bit we also thank her for the effort of being coherent.

Mary is called the new Eve. The first Eve listened to the Word of God, but, once put to the test, she could not trust completely in the one who had spoken to her lovingly and wisely: she decided to listen to her own senses, which see good and beauty where instead God has specifically said “no”.

Mary, the new Eve, true mother of the living, receives the Word of God, and she loves it, making herself available to fulfill it. She does not give any thought to what she knows and sees: she knows God goes beyond her skills. She loves the angel who is talking to her, and she believes him, even better, she offers herself to fulfill what he is saying to her.

Mary continues to reflect God’s light. The stain of sin is not obfuscating God’s holiness in her, a holiness which is still shining in her life in Nazareth, where she has to suffer everyone’s misunderstandings and suspicions; in Caparneum, where Jesus is admired, but not believed; in Jerusalem, where her faithfulness and love for Jesus are put to the test in a very specific way. In her, sin cannot find grip, as it finds it in us.

We have been chosen too “before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him in love”, as the apostle says. Holiness and purification are given to us through the Baptism, the immersion in the divine life, which happens through our taking part in Jesus’s offer to the Father. To live these gifts which are given us thanks to Jesus, we can look at Mary: her way to be close to her Son is an example for us, is intercession for us, is strength for us.

Mary “immaculate” is the image of the Church, as the preface of today’s feast says: Christ’s “beautiful Bride without spot or wrinkle”. What belongs to the Church belongs to Mary. And what belongs to Mary belongs to the Church. The sinners who are part of the Church at every level enjoy the holiness and immaculate splendour of Mary: when they give Jesus their love, they shine of the her very holiness. We need to be healed from the wounds of Adam and Eve’s sin, a sin repeated, renewed and grown by that of our ancestors and by our very own disobediences to God. We will be healed thanks to Jesus, so in us too will start appearing the signs of that beauty which is already complete on Mary’s face.

This feast is today, two weeks from Jesus’s Christmas. Is coming to us without doubt, thanks to Mary, the desire to welcome too the Savior of the world in a pure environment, purified from arrogance and evil. We must prepare, then, looking at the purity of the Virgin, to go to confession to continue our conversion.

We will not be satisfied with preparing Christmas only with external signs: we will make sure the latter become a sign that something has happened inside us and among us. The blessed Virgin Mary may help us with her presence in the Church to continue our path to holiness: God’s light will shine in the world also thanks to us!