08/12/2010 - IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF MARY
1Reading Gen 3,9-15.20 Psalm 97 2Reading Eph 1,3-6.11-12 Gospel Lk 1,26-38
Today's celebration prayers are centered on asking God to free us from sin and
heal us from it's effects in us. We ask with trusting faith because we know that
God can do it, after having spared the virgin Mary from sin. Our story, both personal
and universal, is a story that has to do with sin, that is, with a sick way of relating
with God, and therefore, between ourselves. God is the God of love, but we have
other immaginations about him, like a God who want to limit us, who is jeleous and
therefore he betrays us. This is the temptation Adam and Eve had, towards which
they didnt know, neither want to stand up for. This is the root of sin, and from
this root spruts all the disobbedience in all its expressions of our life. They
are enlisted by the Ten Commandments as chapter titles that gather all in them.
These disobbediences up side down our life, fill it with sadness, distroy the beauty
of creation and the will to live for man. All disobbediences towards God ruin the
relationships among the loved persons and destroys communion among them, as from
the moment they sin they won't be able anymore to love one another. When two agree
to disobbey, any kind of disobbedience, immidiately they start to hate one another
and accuse on another. Sin never brings down a blessing, never fulfill what one
thinks of achieving by following his desicion. On the contrary, sin puts us on the
way of perdion: st. Paul tells us that death is the wage of sin. Sin is not our
life. We are called to holiness, therefore only holiness fills our heart with joy
and peace. This is what the apostle tells us today, that we are made to be holy.
Our destiny, our natural dawn is holiness, as fruit of charity, that is of selfless
love, of which Jesus is the example.
God made us "according to his own image and likeness", therefore able
to love and be fulfilled only in loving. He went after man after the fall. Adam
sinned, that is, he went out of his way, putting himself on the road of fear, of
confussion, unable to be in comunion. God did not abbondon him, but searched for
him, and promised him the possibility of recovery. This promise needed time to be
fully accepted by sinners.
Today we listened to the words of the archangel Gabriel to Mary: "Rejoice..."!
Mary immediately understood that a new season was going to arrive, a season awaited
by all, a reign among men guided by a king who wont put on his subjects the fruit
of his sin, as men, who claim to be king, do. God initiates the long awaited reign
by sending a king who fullfills the hope of all. Joy is the fruit that preceedes
and accompanys this reign: Mary is to live it beforehand because in her the reign
is already bearing its fruit. Mary is to rejoice because in her there is no rebellion,
no sin, no disobbedience. She doesn't know the sadness of the sinner. "Rejoice,
Mary"! Mary is most pure, enlighted by her trusting obedience. Today we see
her in her being without sin: she stayed close to God, listened to his Word without
any hesitation, without judgment, without double thoughts that God might betray
her. In her the Word of God find space to become flesh, the human person, like us
in all except sin. We live like her the same expectation of the birth of the Word
made flesh. We live this expectation by deciding to welcome the Word with the same
loving obedience she welcomed it.
As we look at Mary, we thank the Father: he gave us in her an immage of what we
are to become when we obey him. We venerate the Immaculate Mary: this is the way
the Father desire us to do. As we look with love towards Mary, we prepare ourselves
for purification, so that renewed we carry in us , like her, the Son! Mary in her
obedience and in her commitment to obey God is an example for us, is our strength,
because she is a sign that we too, not withstanding our sinful being, we can walk
on the way of holiness and be saved.
Mary, glory of God, pray for us and bless our hearts with the beauty, the purity
and the happiness that made you the joy of creation. Thanks for your intercession
we too obey the Father and become light that reflects in the world the light of
your son, Jesus!