Homily: Immaculate Conception

Readings:  Gn 3:9-15, 20; Ps 98; Eph 1:3-6,11-12; Lk 1:26-38
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The Advent liturgy is dominated by three captivating persons, three persons who prepare in different ways for the coming of the Savior. The first is the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah represents Israel’s yearning for her messianic king. He does this by preaching God’s message of redemption, preparing God’s people for His coming, urging them, even in exile, to be a people of hope.

The second Advent figure is John the Baptist, the Messiah’s messenger and herald. But John seems a bit puzzled. John recognizes Jesus for who He is, but doesn’t quite know what to make of Him. Will He be a King, a social reformer? John doesn’t seem quite sure. But John does know one thing: with Jesus’ arrival, his own mission is complete.

The third dominant person of Advent is Mary, the young woman from Nazareth. It’s especially fitting that right now, in the midst of Advent, we should celebrate Mary’s Feast, the feast of the Immaculate Conception. For God prepared Mary for the Savior’s coming from the very moment of her conception. He made her sinless in every way – no original sin, no actual sin.

“Mary, full of grace” the angel exclaims, and that’s exactly what he meant. Mary is literally full of God’s grace, so full there is no room for any sin within her. And how could it be otherwise? For God incarnate must enter the world via a spotless vessel, born of woman but a woman without sin.

In the Magnificat, Mary’s beautiful hymn of praise, she gives thanks for this remarkable honor: “…He has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.”

Here Mary teaches us how to celebrate Advent. Mary is the perfect Advent figure because the mother of Jesus is history’s most remarkable model of a world’s waiting for its Redeemer. She reveals, more than anyone else, how the Christian should wait for Christ, and she shows us how to wait for Him in all His comings.

First, she waits for Christ’s first coming. Like every other pious Jew, she hoped against hope, wondering, questioning: “Are you he who is to come, or should we look for another?” But Mary did more than that. She waited for the Christ as no one else ever waited, for the One she waited for was within her. What did the angel tell her? “You shall conceive and bear a son…the Son of the Most High.” Mary agrees: “Let it be done to me according to your word.”

And with this, Jesus is not simply in her thoughts and hopes, in her prayers and yearnings. He is in her flesh. His flesh is her flesh. Hers is His. She waits only to see His face and offer Him to the world. Oh, yes, it was a very special sort of waiting: her Savior within her; her Savior growing from her; her Savior born into the poverty of the stable through her.

Mary also shows us how to wait for Christ’s second coming, for she was the first of Jesus’ disciples, the very model discipleship. She wasn’t one of the Twelve, but she lived discipleship to the fullest. Jesus told us clearly what it means to be a disciple: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother…the ones who listen to the word of God and act on it.” And this is Mary: she who hears God’s word and does it. We see it throughout Luke’s gospel.

What does she do after the annunciation? Visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who was with child. Elizabeth was old and needed the help of her young relative. Mary’s first act as Jesus’ mother is to carry him, not for herself, but for someone in need. No wonder that when Mary greeted Elizabeth, John the Baptist leaped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb.

Mary, the perfect disciple, follows Jesus. She is blessed, not only because she bore God’s Son, but also because she is the prime example of those who listen to the word of God and keep it. She follows Jesus all the way to the cross and beyond. She remains faithful even after her Son’s death, listening to the Lord, praying with the eleven, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Mary also shows us how to wait for another of Christ’s comings – his constant coming each day. Christ comes to us today, not in glory, but in helplessness. Just as He came to Mary as a powerless infant, Jesus comes to us in the hungry and thirsty, in the stranger, in the lonely, in the sick and dying, in the confused and troubled, in the addicted and the imprisoned.

Once again, in the Magnificat she sings that God “has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty…for he has remembered his promise of mercy.”

The trouble is, God feeds the hungry not with miraculous manna from heaven, but through us. The hungers of the human race cry out to us: hunger for bread, hunger for justice, hunger for love, hunger for truth, hunger for God. Their cry is not just a human cry; it is God’s word to us. 

I can’t tell you what God is calling you as an individual to do, for God works differently through each of us. I can tell you only that He is not telling you to do nothing. He speaks to each of us constantly, but we are Jesus’ disciples, in imitation of Mary, only if we listen to his word and act on it.

This is what Advent is all about – not just waiting for Christ, but recognizing His coming and doing something about it. This kind of discipleship is not without cost. “A sword shall pierce your heart,” Mary was told. And so shall it pierce the heart of every true disciple. But like Mary we can take comfort in God’s presence within us. As Jesus told us, if we love Him and keep His word, His Father will love us and they will come and make their home with us.

Christ within us. Christ all around us. Christ leading us. We need only murmur with Mary, “Whatever you say, Lord,” and then do it.