The Solemnity Of The Immaculate Conception Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

Genesis 3:9-15,20
Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12
Luke 1:26-38

Immaculate Conception.
on december 8 1854, blessed Pius ix instituted the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. this is to formally affirm the belief of the church that our blessed mother mary was conceived, free from the stain of original sin. with what the church has taught us about original sin, one might be thinking,….is that not a contradiction?

Or that as we have read in the first reading about eve becoming the mother of all the living, and her connection to the fall of adam, how is mary not part of this drama of original sin?
the church teaches that there is no contradiction. and this is because our blessed mother was preserved.

But to preserve means to keep safe, To Protect, To Safeguard, To Set Apart. The best way to create the picture is the COVID QUARANTINE…. In the case of covid-19, few people contacted it, now imagine the situation where the whole world has covid-19 and just one person….. Is being quarantined not to get infected by it. This this the situation of our blessed MOTHER. she was kept holy from the beginning of her life for the fulfilment of Gods plan for us……She is to be the mother of holy one, jesus, the saviour of the world.
So the feast of immaculate conception that we are celebrating today cannot be neglected as far as our salvation story is concerned. our mother mary is special, because of the special role god has chosen her to play in being the mother of Jesus.

The last time i had this conversation on immaculate conception with a member of our seperated brethren; he asked some questions which I would love all of us to also reflect on. Why Only Mary? Why not Mary and Joseph? why are we not also partaking of this privilege? does it mean that god loves us less? he even blamed adam for the mess of original sin we are human, and it is okay to feel cheated in some situations but that is not the case in our relationship with God.
Adam disobeyed god, no doubt and we are implicated by this one mans sin. But when we consider how God Intervened, then we can call adam’s sin, a beautiful mistake…because god did not abandon us, he sent us his beloved son Jesus Christ for our salvation as we saw in the gospel reading with the incarnation.

Christ became man, and from him, The grace of baptism lows forth from, The grace by which we are cleaned from original sin. This is why i always that baptism is very important because it opens up the gate of hearts to welcome other graces god offers us.
Brethren, rather than seeing the horror adam has caused, let us be joyful with st paul in the second reading and say…. Blessed be the god and father of OUR lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Because, he chose us in him, To be holy and without blemish before him.

How can we not see how special we are too before God. What mary was from her conception, he has accomplished also in us in his son Jesus Christ. Therefore against our concerns of being treated less by god because of original sin, the church has revealed to us that God loves us equally and specially. he has made salvation possible for us.
but we also have a role to play in this salvation…….. The church also presented us with this feast to remind us of our call to holiness. we are invited to cooperate with gods offer of grace.

A good example is how we connect our device to a wifi…They do not automatically connect because there is wifi available, instead we ask for the wifi’s password to connect.
the same applies to our holiness, we are required to connect with God through prayer, and we are encouraged to be in union with christ by frequent reception of the holy eucharist……..even when we have failed because of our human weaknesses, the sacrament of reconciliation has been instituted by christ to keep us reconnected. these are some of the vital ways we can respond gods call to holiness.
In this mass, we ask through the intercession of the blessed mother Mary, that god may grant us the grace to respond to his invitation to holiness and that at the end of our lives, we may inherit the kingdom of heaven which he has prepared for us. this is our prayer through christ our lord. AMEN

Fr Joseph Osho