Today's Ornament of Grace for Thursday of the Second Week of Advent is The Immaculate Conception of Mary.
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens! God chose us in him before the world began, to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love...
Today is a solemn feast of Mary, our Mother. Sometimes people think of this Advent feast as being about Mary’s conception of Jesus, but it is not. Still, it is appropriate for Advent. For Mary’s Conception was God’s way of preparing a mother for Jesus. He preserved her from original sin from the instant she was given life. That is why today we celebrate Mary’s conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne.
Pope Pius IX stated the teaching of the Immaculate Conception in an encyclical titled “Ineffabilis Deus,” which means “Ineffable God,” a God too great to be expressed in words. In this letter the Pope said, “…from the moment of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary was, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of Mankind, kept free from all stain of original sin.” Our Lady herself, appearing to St. Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858, confirmed this. She told Bernadette: “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
According to Tradition but based upon non-canonical sources, Mary’s mother Anne (Hannah in Hebrew) was born in Bethlehem, and she married Joachim. After their marriage, they lived in Nazareth, leading holy lives. They did not have any children, so Joachim suffered ridicule at the Temple. He went away to the country to seek help from God. Anne, missing him, suffered even more from being childless. So, she asked God to please let her bear a child. If she did conceive, she promised God she would dedicate that child to Him. We can conclude that Joachim returned to Nazareth. Anne, grateful to have her husband back with her, conceived. And, she certainly seems to have kept her promise to dedicate her child to God.
We may not know much about Anne and Joachim factually. Still, we can surmise a great deal about them. The Holy Spirit would have prepared their hearts to bring such a child as Mary into the world. We can guess that they were loving parents to raise Mary, and excellent grandparents for Jesus. Surely, they taught Mary to listen to God, to trust in His promises, and to do as He asked. They certainly instructed her in the Scriptures and taught her to pray, something they would have known well. Mary, then, would have been given by her parents, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the foundation she needed to be the holy Mother of God.
We do know that Mary learned well the Word of God, contemplated it, and obeyed it. So, when we celebrate the Immaculate Conception, we might also remember Mary’s parents, Anne and Joachim, and their part in our salvation history. How they would have rejoiced when they knew they could bring a child of God into the world, a joy so many parents find when they know they will be sharing in God’s act of creation.
On this feast, let’s share the happiness of Anne and Joachim that our own Blessed Mother was conceived, lived a sinless life, and said “Yes” to God for each of us. She made it possible for us to receive, as St. Paul says in today’s letter to the Ephesians, “… every spiritual blessing in the heavens!”
OBSERVING THE BEAUTIFUL ORNAMENTS
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