Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, December 8, 2005:

The angel said to her, “nothing will be impossible for God.” One of my favorite Scripture quotes and some of the most consoling and encouraging statements we hear in all of Scripture. God can do anything! Today’s solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is probably one of the most misunderstood feasts in the Church calendar. Very often if you ask someone what the Immaculate Conception is about they will answer that this feast refers to the fact that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary without sin? And, while it is true enough that Jesus did not suffer the stain of original sin, today commemorates Mary’s conception, not Jesus’. It marks the fact that God saw it fit to have Mary conceived in the womb of her mother, Anne, without sin in order to prepare her to be the mother of His son. This feast is profoundly Advent in its tone. It is all about being prepared for the coming of Jesus. God prepared Mary and so too must we be prepared.

This is also an important feast because it is our Nation’s feast day. Each nation in the world is under the patronage of a saint. The United States is under the patronage of Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception. So, in addition to being an important holy day in the life of the Church, today is America’s feast day, and so we pray for our country, that we, as a nation, may live up to the example of Mary, the Mother of God. For Fr. Mike and I, the feast has one more dimension, this is our Franciscan Province’s feast day as well. Fr. Mike and I are members of the Immaculate Conception Province of Franciscans.

Ultimately, this feast speaks to us about God’s profound love for us. I’m fond of speaking about Blessed John Duns Scotus, the 14^th century Franciscan philosopher and theologian. Blessed John was one of the first defenders of Mary’s Immaculate Conception at a time when most other theologians denied it.

But, Blessed John had a much more profound insight. Most of us would say that the reason Jesus came to Earth was to save us from sin. But Blessed John realized that to say that was the reason was to somehow make God responsible for sin. His reasoning said that since Jesus existed with the Father in Heaven before the world was created, then Jesus existed before sin was around. If the main reason for Jesus to come was to save us from sin, then sin would have to be part of God’s plan because Jesus was already given the goal of saving us from that sin. John said no, God is not responsible for sin. The main reason for Jesus coming to us was that Jesus is the ultimate and most complete expression of God’s love for us. So, if sin had never entered the world, Jesus would have still come to let us know how profoundly God loves us, so that God could fully express that love to us. Luckily for us, since we had fallen into sin, when Jesus came, he not only expressed that love, but he also saved us from the nasty situation we had gotten ourselves into.

Mary fits into that because if Jesus was part of the plan before creation, Mary had to be part of the plan before creation too. When Pope John Paul II visited the Marian Shrine at Lourdes for the first time, he quoted the French author Bernanos saying that the Blessed Virgin Mary is "Younger than sin." As part of God’s plan, Mary belongs to the "youngest" period of human history, before the fall brought sin into the world. Mary’s part of the plan was already set into place before there was such a thing as sin and so she was conceived without sin to be properly prepared to be the mother of Jesus, the Mother of God. Blessed John said all of this much more concisely. His Latin summary of this teaching was “Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit” which means, “God was able to do this, it makes sense that he would do this, therefore God did it.” And what God did was do everything possible to make sure that we know how much He loves us. And Mary is a part of that plan. What a gift God bestowed upon her. What a gift of his love He bestows upon us.

Mary is our model for Advent as we try and put ourselves right, to make ourselves ready for Jesus is coming. What God begins in Mary, He hopes for in all of us – to be His sinless disciples and members of His Kingdom.

Let us end praying to Jesus through Mary that we too may be ready, Hail Mary….

May God give you peace!