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Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Word of god every day

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Feast of the Immaculate Conception
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Libretto DEL GIORNO
Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Homily

As Christmas draws near the Liturgy comes to us with this feast in honour of Jesus’ mother. The Virgin Mary becomes an example of how to live in this Advent season, an example of how to wait for the Lord who is to be born among us. The Gospel of Luke shows us a girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, from a little town in Galilee, Nazareth, on the edge of the Roman Empire. She was a girl like any other, living an ordinary life in her village. And yet the Lord’s gaze had come to rest on her. With today’s feast we remember the day when Mary was conceived by her parents, Joachim and Anna. Mary was conceived without sin; that is, she was unmarked by the original guilt of humanity and exempt from the dramatic estrangement from God that is the lot of Adam, Eve, and every one of us.
The feast we celebrate today is ancient, and it used to be called "The Conception of Mary." But when Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, the feast took on this new name. But what does it mean? Was Mary not a girl like any other? From a certain point of view we could say that she was, but the Lord’s gaze had come to rest on her in a very special way. From this perspective, she was never estranged from God by the original sin. From the beginning she had been chosen to be Jesus’ mother. The one who was going to become the mother of the Son could not be estranged from God. And so she received the gift of being born "immaculate", that is, without sin, without any stain. Not because of her merit, but because of grace. The Lord prepared her to be a worthy dwelling place for his Son. Making reference to his well known ontological proof of God’s existence, Saint Anselm writes, "It was right for her to be adorned with a superior purity, greater than which none can be imagined other than that of God himself, this virgin to whom God gave his Son in such a special way." The Son’s love protected the mother. The words God speaks in the Song of Songs may be applied to her, "You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you" (4:7). And this is what at the annunciation, the angel says to her: "Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28).
And yet, Mary’s mystery is not completely foreign to us. Just as God looked on her at the moment of her conception, God has also looked on us. The Apostle Paul writes, "He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love." (Eph 1:4). Like Mary, we were chosen by God before creation, and we were chosen to be holy and immaculate. It is not by accident that the Apostle says: "he chose us" and not "we chose him." Each one of us is like a name spoken by God that has come into existence, just as it is written, "Then God said, ‘Let there be light;’ and there was light." (Gen 1:3). We are the fruit of God’s love; God thinks of us in his heart and we come into the light. Parents take part in this process of love. Our name begins in God’s heart and remains there forever. That is why we believe that life is holy, from the beginning and forever. The Lord never forgets our names; woe to those who want to erase them! Every man and woman is in God’s heart.
Today we contemplate how great God’s love is and what marvels he is able to work for those who, like Mary, do not betray his love. Mary never estranged herself from the love that allowed her to be born immaculate. Formed to become Jesus’ mother, Mary fully accepted her vocation. It was not easy, nor was her acceptance guaranteed. When the angel told her that she was full of grace, Mary was perplexed. She did not think highly of herself. She felt like nothing in front of God. We, on the other hand, have either a very high sense of ourselves or a very negative one, which amounts to the same thing. This is the very core of original sin. In both cases, we think of ourselves as disconnected from God and distant from his love. This is the origin of evil in the world, the original sin. At the words of the angel, Mary did not exalt or disparage herself. She was perplexed, the evangelist writes. So it should be for us each time we listen to the Gospel: we should not exalt ourselves or be pessimistic, but we should listen.
And if we listen, our hearts will be touched; that is what it means to be perplexed. The angel comforts Mary: "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive a son... and [you] will name him Jesus" (v. 30). To tell the truth, these words upset her even more, in part because she had not yet gone to live with Joseph. The angel adds, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you" (v. 35). We cannot know what Mary’s thoughts were at that moment. She could say "no" and go on with her quiet life; for to say "yes" could mean (in the best case) that she would be taken for an unwed mother. Unlike us, Mary does not depend on her own strength, and so she is able to say, "Here am I, the servant of the lord; let it be with me according to your word." Mary, the first to be loved by God, is also the first to answer "yes" to his call. Today she stands before us, before the eyes of our hearts, so that by contemplating her we can imitate her and we, too, can receive the tender embrace of the Son that fills our hearts and our lives.

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR

Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
 The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!

WORD OF GOD EVERY DAY: THE CALENDAR