Readings for today's homily
Today we as a church honor Mary for what she did in her life. In acknowledging how perfect was her response to God's Word we believe that she was free from sin from the first moment of her existence. It is her Immaculate Conception that is the focus of our celebration today.
What Mary did better than any human being who ever lived was to cooperate with the gift or the grace that was given her. She was "full of grace" and "blessed among women".
It is our belief that God's grace is offered to each of us in special ways. Our task is to recognize how much God loves us and encourages us to live our lives in ways consistent with his will.
On this feast of Mary, we recognize the fact that Mary--above all others--cooperated perfectly with God's presence within her--with God's grace. We also need to see this feast as a challenge to us to be conscious of the bundle of possibilities which rest in us--no matter what our age.
By cooperating with God's grace we can do marvelous things--things like loving others, forgiving others.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception always falls within the Advent season--the time when we anxiously await the presence of the Christ child. In a sense, one way that Christ is born over and over again is in the way we live, in the way we love.
We ask Mary, the gentle woman, to pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
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