What is the Immaculate Conception all about? Why do we have this annual celebration of this great feast?

The Immaculate Conception, says Pope Benedict XVI, is a result of the deeper reflection we have on the words of the archangel Gabriel: hail, full of grace! The angel greeted Mary but did not mention her proper name, rather, calling her “full of grace”.

It seems that for God, the real name of Mary is “full of grace.”

In the life of Mary, we see this overflowing grace of God in the entire thread of her existence.  Grace at the time the angel appeared, grace in her divine motherhood, grace in her assumption to heaven, but grace too, from the earliest moment of her conception in her mother’s womb.  Grace defines the entire history of Mary’s life.

We are accustomed to call Mary by this title of being graced, when we repeat the Hail Mary each day:  Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!

Why was Mary full of grace?  Why does God give his people graces?  The answer is easy.  Grace is given when a mission is entrusted.  And Mary received a very challenging task – to be the Mother of God on this earth, to be the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, Savior of the world.

The grace given to her then, is not for her selfish consumption, but for our benefit.  She is full of grace, full of the love of God.

This is what many people desire these days, this grace of God to accompany their waking and their sleeping.  Life offers us not grace, but disgrace in many of its worldly forms.

We experience the disgrace brought about by so many trials in life.  It seems that disgrace increases, multiplies, intensifies in its influence today.  Look at families, and the disgrace of brokenness, the government and the disgrace of corruption, the Church and the disgrace of scandals, nature and the disgrace of calamities. Look at your heart and feel the disgrace sin brings to you.

Where does this disgrace originate? Not from God, for God is the source of all good, of all blessings.  Disgrace comes from the heart of man and woman who succumb to the wrong use of heart and mind; hearts that disobey rather than surrender to God’s loving plan.

In the midst of disgrace, we are easily disheartened and rendered hopeless.  But God is different from us.  The more he saw the world mired in its self-made problems, he continued to plan our salvation.  He desired to heal our disgrace through the grace he would give to this woman, Mary, prepared from the start to be the Mother of the Lord.  Jesus, finally, will destroy the disgrace of sin to make of us new again.

A glance at the Virgin Mary is an encounter with Jesus.  Hearing her voice is being drawn to the Word made Flesh. The Immaculate Conception beckons us to come closer to Jesus, Son of God and Savior of all.

Hail, full of grace!  Obtain for us the grace to be faithful to God like you.  May we receive the grace to share our lives with others the same way you did.

LET US EXTEND PRAYERS AND HELP TO OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN MINDANAO WHO ARE SUFFERING NOW BECAUSE OF THE TYPHOON PABLO THAT HIT THEIR AREA AND BROUGHT DEVASTATION THERE.  IN MASSES TODAY AND TOMORROW, LET US BE GENEROUS IN SHARING THE BLESSINGS WE HAVE RECEIVED FROM THE LORD.