OMELIE / Omelie EN

08/12/2011

Immaculate Conception 2011

08/12/2011 - Immaculate Conception of the Bld. Virgin Mary

1Reading Gen 3,9-15.20 Psalm 97 2Reading Eph 1,3-6.11-12 Gospel Lk 1,26-38

Today’s feast is a great feast: it celebrates the beauty and the purity of our Mother. We can say, though, that this feast does not celebrate Mary, but the goodness and the mercy of God for humanity, because it’s all his work. The Father, in sight of the merits of Jesus and of his holiness, had prepared for him a woman that from the begining of her existence was freed from that sin in which we all were to inherit.

Sin which we call <original> could be viewed as a way, the way that leads one away from God. Adam generated all his children and descendents on this way. It’s the way of egoism, of rebellion, of individualism. The effect of being in this situation is made vizible in each and everyone of us: sometimes it is manifested already at an early age through capricious kids, other times with the first rebellions, not only towards parents, but also to the Word of God and to the most elementary ommands of human life. Therefore that <sin> turns to become actions and thoughts of which we become guilty. Christian formation, that has its begining and its power in the Baptismal grace, help us to turn to the Father. Jesus accompanies us, and pour out and fill us with his holy Spirit. He brings us back on the way of love, of that love that one wont live for himself, and is ready to offer oneself till the moment of enduring sufferring and death.

To give a worthy welcome to the Son on earth, the Father had prepared that the virgin Mary would be on the way that leads to him. This is why she is called Immaculate Conception: she was conceived in the womb of her mother without that orientation towards that disobbedience in which we all find ourselves. Glory to God for this! With this mystery we proclaim the free gift of God’s love, his attention to the weakness of our humanity, and his mercy towards all.

When the angel announced to Mary that her maternity was to change her life and her dreams and projects, she did not refuse, neither she tried tor resist, as the prophets had resisted, at least in the first place. Even though she predicted the greatness of the mission she was trusted with and the problem to bring it to the end, she reacted only with one question: “How is this to happen?” By this question she simply wanted to say: what am I to do that this can happen? In her interrogative to the angel there is already her yes, a full yes and a disposition to busy herself so that this happen. She sees herself as little and poor, as she was truly, and thinks that she was to do something of which she was not capable. Here we have the purity of heart of Mary, a purity of heart that make her say with full trust: “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to your word”.

Today, helped by the apostle, we bless God the Father who cared to bless us. His first full and eternal blessing is exactly the mystery that we are celebrating. Sin is won and cancelled by God himself at the conception of the one who was to carry the saviour of the world. He shall continue to bring forward the love of the Father by giving us the possibility to ask for forgiveness and to forgive us all our faults as fruit of that sin that puts us all to test. In this way the promise made as from the begining, after the sin of Adam and Eve, is fulfilled.

As we contemplate the Immaculate Mary, we thank our God, because in her we see his faithful love. Loving the Immaculate Mary, we love the plan of God to save everybody, and therefore we do not condemn no one and we wont carry any hatred against any body. Praying the Immaculate Mary, we ask the Father to free our heart from every sin that annoy us and bring in us disorder. Honoring the Immaculate Mary we offer to God the Father ourselves so that also in us the purification of humanity from every disobbedience and every idolatry continues to be.