Do you ever wonder how our Blessed Mother could have been so
good? When encouraged to “be like Mary”
do you ever think “I could never be like her.”
Well, that’s somewhat true. Yes, she was
unimaginably good and no, we can never be perfectly like her. But there
is a reason. When Mary was conceived in
the womb of her mother, St. Ann, her soul was free from the stain of Original
Sin. That was so because God, the
Father, allowed her to experience the redeeming graces of her Son and so she
was immaculate in her conception. During her life she was not drawn to sin
because she was free from “concupiscence”, the pull that we have toward sin. When
the angel Gabriel came to her at the time of the Annunciation he addressed her
as “full of grace.” That is why she was
so good – she was FULL of grace. Since
her soul was spotless her capacity for grace was great. The more we grow in holiness the more we
really will become like her; the more we grow in holiness, the greater will be
the capacity of our souls for God’s grace.
Our Blessed Mother was full of
grace so she could be the holy dwelling of her Son.
This mystery is what we celebrate in the Church today – the solemn
feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Normally
the solemnity is celebrated on December 8 but because that date fell on a
Sunday this year, the Church moved the feast to today, Monday.
Our Blessed Mother, under the title of her Immaculate
Conception, is the patroness of the United States. Let us beg her today to ask Jesus to bless
our country. It desperately needs to be
freed from sin and open to God’s grace. And let us ask the Lord to give us the grace to fall in love with her, she who is our mother, our queen.
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.
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