The Handmaid of the Lord: Reflections on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 2025

If you haven’t already read the readings you can find them here.

Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Psalm 98
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Luke 1:26-38

According to the Catholic Dictionary, a solemnity is “The highest liturgical rank of a feast in the ecclesiastical calendar.” As such, it is celebrated in the same way that Sundays are, with a full set of readings that directly relate to the object of the feast. Because of this solemnity’s importance as a joyful exception to the normal penitential tone of Advent, we will also sing the Gloria even though it is normally excluded during Advent.

Mary had a special purity. According to Bishop Sheen “She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. ... This special purity of hers we call the Immaculate Conception,” which “means that at the first moment of her conception she ... was preserved free from the stains of original sin.” (The World’s First Love)

The readings for this solemnity begin with the fall of our first parents, having been deceived and tricked by Satan in the guise of a serpent. Several passages are left out and it is worth reading the whole description to get the full effect that their disobedience has had on humanity. As a result of their disobedience, the enjoyment of labor (productive activity) has now become toil (exhausting labor or even (archaic) strife, struggle). Here we also read the classic Ash Wednesday phrase, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And then there is the spiritual death resulting from the separation from God. Who, then, is the real liar, Satan or God?

Adam, the man, “... called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living.” Today we celebrate the conception of our Blessed Mother, the “new Eve,” given to us by Jesus from the Cross: “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:26-27)

The responsorial refrain, “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous deeds,” can be a reference to many things the Lord has done for us. The phrase “The LORD has made his salvation known” relates to the Immaculate Conception as it is a precursor to the coming of the Word made flesh in the virgin birth. God “has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel.” This also relates to Psalm 94 which says, “For the LORD will not forsake his people, nor abandon his inheritance.” This relates to the promise of salvation through the enmity between the woman’s offspring and the serpent, which is repeated throughout the Old Testament (prophecies about the Messiah) and realized in the Word Incarnate Who comes at Christmas. In the Novena prayer to the Mother of God for the Nation we acknowledge that “Mary is the Woman chosen by God to be his mother and ours, but also to be the chief human enemy – the nemesis – of the Evil One (Gen 3:15, Rev. 12).”

Mary’s “Magnificat,” (Luke 1:46-55) (aka the Canticle of Mary) which she recites at the Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, echoes the “marvelous deeds” of the responsorial psalm. In that she also notes that God has remembered His “promise to our fathers, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And, prophetically, she notes “from now on will all ages call me blessed.” A fitting statement for this solemnity. “The central theme of the ‘Magnificat’ [is] that God exalts the humble and humbles the exalted.” (Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle C)

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians explains that all of this is part of God’s plan for salvation, based on love with the idea of our adoption as His sons and daughters. Thus Jesus uses the phrase “Our Father” when He teaches the apostles how to pray. In his classic The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis highlights this fact when Screwtape explains the difference in the goals of the demons versus the goals of God: “We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons.” This is our destiny according to God’s will. It is up to us to conform our will to God’s plan so that we, as loving and obedient children, may “exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.”

The gospel from Luke details the Annunciation by the Angel Gabriel and Mary’s acceptance of God’s offer to be the mother of the “Son of God.” Take careful note of the angel’s greeting. At first he does not address the Blessed Mother by name, but by her condition, and what one might consider her title: “Hail, ‘full of grace’.” Thus we see the basis for calling Mary the “Immaculate Conception.” Someone who is “full of grace” has no room for any sin whatsoever, not even original sin.

Mary did not doubt the angel’s message, but she asked for understanding, "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" The angel explained how the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and “Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” He will be, as Isaiah prophesied, “Emmanuel,” (Immanuel or “God with us”) (Isaiah 7:14).

Many Protestants downplay the role of Mary in the Incarnation and cannot understand why she is so important to the Catholic faith. Perhaps it is because they cannot understand that she is the ideal, the perfect human being, who totally submitted her will to that of God the Father. She is the example of humility to which we should all aspire. And the critical point is at the end of this passage, Mary’s fiat, given of her own free will: “Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.’”

Honoring Mary does not detract from our worship of Jesus. Everything Mary does both points to Jesus and is the perfect example of humility. She was never boastful about being chosen to bear the Incarnate Word. “You see, Mary was doing the same thing that John the Baptist would do once he was born: preparing the way for Jesus, pointing to Jesus, preaching Jesus, disappearing into Jesus, stepping back and letting him appear. The greatest of all prophets (that’s what Jesus called John the Baptist) and the greatest of all women (that’s what God’s angel called Mary) both do the same thing: ‘He must increase; I must decrease,’ as John put it (John 3:30). It’s their humility that makes them great. That’s the central theme of the ‘Magnificat’: that God exalts the humble and humbles the exalted.” (Kreeft, Food for the Soul, Cycle C.)

Fulton Sheen, in Life of Christ, explains: “The person which assumed human nature was not created, as is the case of all other persons. His Person was the pre-existent Word or Logos. His human nature, on the other hand, was derived from the miraculous conception by Mary, in which the Divine overshadowing of the Spirit and the human Fiat or the consent of a woman, were most beautifully blended.”

“As mariners are guided into port by the shining of a star, so Christians are guided to Heaven by Mary.” St. Thomas Aquinas