The Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

December 8, 2021

Luke 1, 26–38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX wrote the apostolic constitution entitled Ineffabilis Deus, in which he stated: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”  The Father granted her this Immaculate Conception for the sake of her Son, that his pure Son might be born of a pure Mother.

The key to understanding how this doctrine is found in the Scriptures is in examining the Gospel reading for this Feast, particularly the Angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary.  In the English of the reading, it is translated: “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.”  These words are familiar to us, and yet they only barely convey the full meaning of the Greek.  Now, the typical Hebrew form of greeting in Biblical times combined the wish for peace with the words, “The Lord be with you” (cf. Ruth 2, 4).  With a formal greeting, the person’s name or title would be used: “O King, may you live forever!” (Daniel 8, 6).  Gabriel’s first word of greeting is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew shalom, chairē, literally meaning, “rejoice”.  But instead of a name following the greeting, the Angel addresses Mary as the kekaritoméneh, a word which means something like, “having been filled with grace”.  It is not the adjective “full”, but a verb.  Mary does not receive grace at the time of the Angel’s visitation, but has already been filled with it.  That the Virgin Mary was filled with grace by God at the instant of the beginning of her life is the Immaculate Conception.  Prepared by this unprecedented gift of God, she is capable of being the Mother of his Son.

The old Breviary puts the following words from Sirach 24, 24–31 on the lips of the Blessed Virgin: “I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey, and my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me, shall yet hunger for more: and they that drink me, shall thirst for more. He that hearkens to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin.”  This is the traditional translation is from the Vulgate.  Reflecting on these verses helps us to understand better what it means that she is “full of grace”.  

“I am the Mother of fair love.”  She is the Mother of Love incarnate, for God is love.  She who is free of sin and from our fallen human nature has an ability to love that goes far beyond what we little ones are capable of imagining.  This is the love owed to the Son of God who took his Flesh from her so that this Flesh could be nailed to the Cross for our salvation.  “And of fear.”  Not servile fear, for love drives out this kind of fear (1 John 4, 18), but of that awe which comes from gazing upon the newly born Son of God in her arms, and even nursing him.  “And of knowledge.”  That is, knowledge that God has entered his creation and takes our sins upon himself.  “And of holy hope.”  Hope is holy when it is in the salvation offered by God to us if we abide in his love and rely on the motherly intercession of the Blessed Virgin.

“In me is all grace of the way and of the truth.”  In the Blessed Virgin is “all grace” since her Son is the Author of all grace.  Even in her holy womb, the Savior’s grace could be felt, as St. Elizabeth felt it and also the son she carried in her own womb.  And “all grace” is in her beginnings, in the moment of her conception.  It is called “all grace of the way”, that is, the way of Christ, and of the truth, for he himself is the Truth.  “In me is all hope of life and of virtue.”  Jesus, whom Mary carried, is our sure and certain hope of life and of virtue.  She intercedes for us to have this, and gives us her example.

“Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and be filled with my fruits.”  As the Magi found, the way to Jesus is through Mary his Mother.  She does not wait for us to find her but calls us to her so that we may approach her Son, the Fruit of her womb.  And she wishes us to be filled with this Fruit so that we may love him with great tenderness.  “For my spirit is sweet above honey.”  The graces in her soul make it so beautiful  that it can be described in terms of the other senses as well.  Nothing surpassed honey for sweetness in the ancient world, and no beauty but that of God surpasses hers.  “And my inheritance above honey and the honeycomb.”  We long for heaven, the inheritance the Lord promises to his elect, and its prize jewel is the Virgin Mary, increasing our longing for it.  “My memory is unto everlasting generations.”  The holy Virgin herself says, “All generations shall call me blessed.”  And this because of all that God has done for her.  His grace enabled her to conform herself perfectly to his will, and in honor of her accomplishing this, we cry out, “You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you are the honor of our people” (Judith 15, 10).

“They that eat me, shall hunger for more: and they that drink me, shall thirst for more.”  As glorious as the Blessed Virgin is, she leads us to God himself who feeds us Bread and gives us Wine to drink which alone can fill us.  She gives us great joy; he gives us perfect happiness.  “He that hearkens to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin.”  Those who have recourse to her throughout the day will enjoy the result of their labors and can look forward to the eternal reward God will bestow on them for laboring well in his service.  Those who stay close to the Virgin, meditating on her mysteries and calling upon her in time of need will defeat temptation, or, she will defeat it through them.

The traditional prayer for this feast:

“O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, prepared a worthy dwelling for Your Son, and who, by your Son’s death, foreseen by you, preserved her from all taint, grant, we beseech you, through her intercession, that we too may come to you unstained by sin.

Through Christ our Lord.”