Romana

Today’s Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception begins with words of great joy that we now make our own in our prayer, wanting them to be truly authentic: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Is 61:10). These words from the Old Testament, prophetically applied to the Blessed Virgin, help us to unite ourselves to the joy of our Mother. And we want, Lord, that this joy not be something superficial, a simple reminder of something already known, but that it truly have a great influence on our day, that it fills us with deep joy.

In the first reading of the Mass, from the Book of Genesis, we are reminded of the promise of redemption that Adam and Eve received after their fall. That promise of redemption refers of course to Christ, but also, with Him and in Him, to Holy Mary: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed,” the Lord says to the serpent. “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). A struggle is also announced, because the devil will not be satisfied; he will go on attacking, he will strike the heel, but the serpent’s head will be crushed. Today, Lord, we especially want to sense in our prayer that we are very much children of the Blessed Virgin, the new Eve, Mother of the living and our Mother: very much children of your Mother, and therefore very much your brothers and sisters. So often every day, in one way or another, we contemplate her, we pray to her, we turn to her; and today we would like to do so with a special faith, with a greater faith in the Lord who continually gives her to us as Mother, as the all-powerful supplicant, as a sure means of placing within our reach the power of God with the maternal tone of Mary, with her motherly affection.

We know the Gospel of today’s Mass by heart. But the Gospel is always the word of God, an effective, penetrating word, and we want to let ourselves be penetrated once again by it. “At that time the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!’” (Lk 1:26-28). Every day we pray these words so many times: Ave, gratia plena. At first, the angel doesn’t call her Mary; he gives her as her proper name her condition of being full of grace, which, as the experts explain, means being completely transformed by grace.

Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (Lk 1:36). Our Lady responds to the angel’s proposal with these words, which we pronounce every day. Today we would like to repeat them, our Mother, with the conviction that everything God wants for us is for our good, even if at times we do not understand it. May we have the joy and security of always being in God’s hands, protected by Him, guided by his providence. Nothing in our life is pure chance: behind it is always God’s will, who wants the best for us.

Our Father exclaimed: “Mother, Oh Mother! With that word of yours – fiat, ‘be it done’ – you have made us brothers of God and heirs to his Glory. Blessed are you’ (The Way, no. 512). By repeating ‘be it done’ in our daily lives, both in great and small things, we become ever more fully brothers and sisters of God, heirs to his glory, with a grace that comes to us through Mary’s motherly mediation.

In the second reading, St. Paul writes: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph 1:3). We too have been chosen to be spotless. Certainly, we were conceived with original sin, but through baptism we have been born again without stain, immaculate. Afterwards, our fragility causes us to become more or less stained, but we always have the remedy of becoming immaculate again through his grace, through the power of the sacraments, through confession, through the Eucharist, through the prayer in which God always welcomes us. This is a great reason for hope in our spiritual life and apostolic work. No matter how much we may experience external or internal difficulties, personal or from our environment, we can feel immaculate, in spite of our stains, because God cleanses us constantly every time we turn to Him.

God has chosen us before the creation of the world. Our vocation, God’s plan for us, is as eternal as God himself. He already thought of each one of us so that we would be holy and spotless in his presence. And as St. Paul reminds us, he chose us in Christ. These words are also important, because our whole life is a life in Christ: it must be, we want it to be a life in Christ. Our Father so often told us that we must always seek union with God in order to be steadfast: in the face of difficulties, in the face of work, in the face of our own defects. In order to be steadfast, in order not to become discouraged, in order to feel secure in the call we have received from God, let us seek union with Christ. And it is Mary who guides us towards Him, who helps us at all times to identify ourselves with Him, so that we can be theipse Christus that our Father preached.

The idea of being alter Christus is more or less understandable, more or less common. But being ipse Christus, both enormously original and enormously profound, is certainly much more. Not only identifying ourselves with Him by imitating Him, but also living in him, being Him in some way, without ceasing to be ourselves. It is the great mystery of our divine filiation, of our participation in God’s life, which Christ has given us in the Holy Spirit, so that we may be holy and spotless, immaculate, in his presence. Today especially, when we hear again this word “immaculate,” we turn our eyes to our Lady, so that she may help us, so that we may be like her in this too, in being immaculate.

It really takes audacity to claim to be immaculate; but we can be immaculate every time we get up, every time we cleanse ourselves. That is why we owe so much gratitude to our Lord for penance, for confession, for his love and mercy, who forgives us, who raises us up in this visible way, in the sacrament, and every time we raise up our heart to ask for his forgiveness.

Holy, immaculate, in his presence. The presence of God is another great theme in our life, something that must mark our journey in this world. To live in God’s presence: that is to have supernatural life. We are right away reminded of another point from The Way: “Live in the presence of God and you will have supernatural life” (The Way, no. 278). The presence of God and supernatural life are two very closely united realties, because it is not just any presence of God; it is an act of profound faith in the Deus nobiscum, and then:quis contra nos? (Rom 8:31). And who better, who more deeply and truly can say Deus nobiscum than our Lady? Let us ask Mary now: our Mother Immaculate, help us to have faith in the presence of God in each one of us. May this reality fill us with serenity and joy, for He gives us the grace to cast away fear and sadness.

He chose us in Christ, before the creation of the world, to be holy and spotless in his presence, out of love. Love: we know very well that holiness is the fullness of charity, which is also the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit in our souls; and it is from there that we must always draw the strength for our work, for our apostolic efforts, for our whole life. Most especially, holiness as the fullness of charity must lead us to unity. As the well-known words of St. Cyprian, so ancient now, say: “Charity is the bond that unites brothers, the foundation of peace, the tie that gives firmness to unity; it is superior to hope and faith, superior to almsgiving and martyrdom, for it will remain with us forever in heaven’ (St. Cyprian, De bono patientiæ, no. 15: PL 4, 631 C).

The bond that unites brothers and sisters. And that love, that charity, is inseparable from God’s love; in a way it is the same, although in different directions, it is the same virtue. The bond that unites brothers and sisters: mothers rejoice when they see brothers and sisters, their children, united, that they love one another, help one another, go hand in hand. We can be sure that our Lady rejoices when she sees us united, when she sees that we love one another. And at the same time, she is the one who helps us to be united, to live fraternity, the fraternity that always seeks, by its very nature, to overflow in apostolic zeal.

We ask the Blessed Virgin, our Mother, to give us the tone of a family; may she protect us also in this sense that the Work be, as our Father wanted, a small family, even if it is spread all over the world. You remember that our Father said that although we are spread all over the world, we can be a small family, because of love, affection, unity. And our Lord grants us this through our Lady, through our Mother, since the Mother is the one who gives unity.

Mary’s total absence of sin led her to want to serve. The first thing that occurs to her after her fiat, when the incarnate God himself is in her womb, is to go and visit Elizabeth. The angel told her that she is expecting a child. And since our Lady knows that she is old, she realizes Elizabeth will need help. Help us, our Mother, to have the attitude that leads us to discover the needs of others, an immediate manifestation of your Immaculate being.