December 8 2023 - Immaculate Conception - Behold your mother!

 On the Cross, on Calvary, on Good Friday, Jesus gave a commandment to his followers. With his final breaths, he said, “Behold your mother”. Behold your mother. Even in his agony, he was thinking of his mother Mary. And he commanded that we do the same. One of the dimensions of the Christian life, part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, is to behold Mary, to behold her. After all, Jesus told us to do so.

We behold Mary in a number of ways. We depict her in art. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and our mother in faith, has been depicted in art, in paintings, statues, stained glass windows, murals and mosaics, more than any person in human history. Just in this church alone, you can spend a good chunk time, counting the many depictions of the blessed mother. She’s even on a number of our candlesticks. 

We behold our mother, also by considering her faith—her countless virtues. We meditate upon how she responded to God with such humility and trust at her annunciation. We meditate upon how she went in haste out of charity to her cousin Elizabeth who had become pregnant in her old age. We meditate upon how Mary rejoiced at the birth of Christ in the poor stable of Bethlehem—how she faithfully brought Jesus to the temple and pondered the words of Simeon who foretold how her heart would be pierced by swords of sorrow. We meditate upon her strength, as she stood at the cross of Christ, her only son, consoling Him as only a mother’s presence can. 

And we also behold our mother by considering the special graces given to her by God. And today we consider one of those graces, one of those special favors and privileges that God chose to bestow on Mary. Because when Jesus tells us to behold your mother, Catholics take that command seriously.

And today, beholding her, we look, not to the end of her earthly life, not to a moment during the ministry of Jesus or even his childhood or infancy when she birthed him and nursed him. We look to a moment even before Mary was an infant herself, born of her parents Joachim and Anne. We behold our mother--looking to the very first moment of Mary’s existence as a human person, her conception in the womb of her mother. 

And beholding her at the first moment of her existence, we find God doing something he had never  done before, and never will do again. He made her immaculate. 

Now each of us, every human person is beautifully and wonderfully made by God. But God did something very special for her. By virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, savior of the human race, God preserved Mary from the stain of original sin. That’s what it means to be immaculate—to have been made without stain. 

Could God do this? Of course. He is God. Nothing is impossible for God. God is all-powerful. To say God couldn’t do that is to claim assert that he is not almighty. But he is. He could make her immaculate if he so chose. And he did. And Christians have believed that He did since the beginning of the Church.

And God made Mary this way, because he wanted to—he saw it fitting—to make Mary immaculate—to prepare a worthy Mother for her Son. So that the Word might take his sinless flesh from the sinless flesh of his immaculate mother.

So we praise God today for his marvelous work by beholding our mother. Love her. Get to know her. Imitate her virtues. Turn to her in prayer. Behold her today and all days. Don’t let a day go by without beholding her in some way. For Jesus commanded it so. He gave her to us to be our mother also, a mother filled with special graces to help us be the people God made us to be—to use the graces he has bestowed on us in God’s service, for the building up of the church, for the mission of the Gospel, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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As we await with longing the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, dear brethren, let us with renewed devotion beseech his mercy, that, as he came into the world to bring the good news to the poor and heal the contrite of heart, so in our own time, also, he may bring salvation to all in need.

That through Immaculate Mary, Queen of the Church, Our Holy Father, all bishops, clergy and religious may be sustained in their labors, and that the entire people of God may be disposed to the great graces of Our Lady’s intercession.

For these United States of America on this our patronal feast, that our nation may be united by God’s Spirit, guarded from terror, observant of God’s Holy Laws, and vigilant against threats to our freedom, peace, and well-being. May the Wisdom of God guide our government leaders and legislators, our families, businesses, civil institutions, and all our domestic affairs. 

That from the moment of conception all children will be preserved from bodily harm; for the overturning of unjust and pernicious laws that permit the destruction of innocent life; and that the minds of all may be enlightened to know the dignity of every human life.  Let us pray to the Lord. Lord Hear our Prayer.

That Immaculate Mary, help of Christians, may obtain strength for the weary, rest for the overburdened, healing for the sick, love for the lonely, hope for the despairing, freedom for the addicted, wisdom for the foolish, and faith for the faithless.

For the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, and for Julie Strunk, for whom this mass is offered.

For all those prayers written in our prayer intention book and those prayers we now voice in the silence of our hearts…[pause for few moments].  

We pray, O Lord our God, that the Virgin Mary, who merited to bear God and man in her chaste womb, may commend the prayers of your faithful in your sight. Through Christ our Lord.