The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Monday, December 8, 2025

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.

Like many peoples of the time did, the Jews had formalized their greetings. According to the customary form, a Jew meeting another would say Shalom, offering wishes for peace and good health, and then the person’s title or name. Thus, we see Judas greeting the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, usually translated into English as “Hail, Rabbi.”  And then the other party would respond in the same way. In the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, the Angel Gabriel greets her with (as is usually translated) “Hail”, but then a word other than her given name. In place of the name her parents had given her, Gabriel gives the name by which the angels knew her: (literally) “The one who has been graced”, with the implication, due to the tense of the word, that she remains “graced”. No one had ever been addressed in this way before, so no wonder Mary was confused. This greeting gets to the heart of the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. At the very instant of her creation in her mother’s womb, she was free from the defect of Original Sin. She came into the world as a gorgeous palace — fit for a King.

This freedom from Original Sin affected not only her actions, but her outlook and her personality.  Since her conception, her will has been turned towards the will of God   Calling herself the “handmaid of the Lord” provides us with her own understanding of what “she who has been perfected in grace” means, as a “handmaid” would be born into a life of servitude and would depend entirely on her owner for her existence.  For the willful who rebelled, this would be a miserable state of affairs, but for one who gloried in her owner, no treasure or false freedom could hold any allure.  

She reveals something of her heart in her Magnificat, which she sang before her cousin Elizabeth: “My soul magnifies the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  Her soul always “magnified” the Lord, that is, proclaimed his greatness through the service of her life, and she rejoiced in God her “Savior”.  This line is worth examining, for while she cries aloud that she glorifies God for what she knew God to have done for her in the past and the present, her calling God her “Savior” tells us something else that she knew.  Now, in the Psalms David calls God his “Savior” after he has escaped danger or been victorious in battle: “I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies” (Psalms 18, 3).  In her praise of God she shows an awareness that God has saved her in a special way: she knows well that her Son will save the human race, but she emphatically calls God my Savior.  On some level she knew of her Immaculate Conception and was rejoicing in it.  God had saved her from the enemies that afflict all of us, the devil and sin, but he had saved her in a way that most wonderfully prepared her for her unique part in his plan of salvation for us.

Today we rejoice with her, and in her, for by her prayers her victory is ours, and her Savior, our own.