SATURDAY HOMILY: A Most Amazing Grace

12/8/2012

(Page 2 of 2)

lyrics of a popular Protestant hymn, that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was wrought by a "most amazing grace."

Sin makes us enemies of God. The name "Satan" means "adversary" or "enemy." We may not think of it in these terms but every sin, even the smallest of sins, makes us, in some sense, adversaries or enemies of God. When one sins, one is opposing God and His divine will.

God chose Our Lady and made her Immaculate so that He would have a most faithful ally in carrying out His plan of redemption. She was not, as some might be tempted to think, a mere passive instrument in the hands of God, a kind of disposable incubator for the Word Incarnate. On the contrary, she was a real, flesh and blood, human being, who cooperated freely with God's plan of salvation.

In the prayers of today's Mass we ask God our Lord through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary that we may be "cleansed" and "delivered from all our faults," and "healed" of the wounds caused by our sins. In the Preface, she is called an "advocate of grace and a model of holiness."

In our own struggle to be "holy and without blemish before God" we have no greater aide than Mary Most Holy who by her free and total "yes" to God crushed the head of the ancient serpent, the devil, and opened the door of the world to the Word made flesh, our Redeemer.

In closing, let us turn to Immaculate Mary, our Mother, in the words of the ancient prayer, Alma Mater Redemptoris, and say to her:

Loving mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again. To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before. You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners. Amen.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Fr. G. Peter Irving III, Holy Innocents Long Beach, Immaculate Conception, Blessed Virgin Mary, Patroness of the United States of America, Marian, rosary,

NEWSLETTERS »

Previous Page 1 | 2

Rate This Article

Was this helpful to you? Very Helpful Somewhat Helpful Not Helpful at All

Would you be interested in more articles like this? Yes, I am Interested No, I am not Interested

Rate Article

1 - 5 of 5 Comments

Robert Burford
5 months ago
I is amazing how slow we are as Catholics to really understand the dogmas of the Church. The homily for the vigil of the Immaculate Conception. Repeated the confusion that most catholics have about the Incarnation. It is further confused by the scripture in the Gospel which describes the Incarnation.He also repeated the fact that we do not worship Mary. It is shameful that priest have to do this at Mass when what they should be focusing their homily on Mary as our model. She is fully human. Let it be done to me according to Thy word. She was a gutsy women who by letting it be done to her she risked death right then and there. Remember they stoned unmarried pregnant women in her day. What faith and what a model for us. Amen
jh
5 months ago
Beautifully explained, and thereby helpful in this Year of Faith. We may need to explain what the Immaculate Conception means.
abey
5 months ago
It is common reasoning that here on Earth an average child comes to know its Father through its Mother, even unto grownup children it usually is the Mother who appraises the Father of their requirements & for a child to come to its fulness requires the Father & the Mother to a wholesome healthy family through the respective qualities of the parents again to the reason why the Bible says a woman shall not dress as a man & vice versa referring to the given Qualities to be maintained & developed which God had created in each & to this Quality in the woman(meant for her children) did the serpent take advantage of which basically is to get at the Man, but then "the seed of the woman" come as Jesus to bruise his head through the Enmity that God but between the woman & the serpent unto their seeds, which seeds refer to the First fruits of the Lamb, them who keep the Commandments of God & have the testimony of Jesus mentioned in Rev. Ch 12. Mary as the given Mother of mankind pleads for us to the redemption, against the accusations of the serpent, through Christ unto God to be called as the Mother of the Redeemed, the very reason why she was Chosen by God. For the God who created man knows their needs.
mike robertson
5 months ago
I ask my Catholic brothers and sisters who agree with me to ask the Blessed Mother to pray for the enlightenment of Catholic democrats as we face as dark a time as I have known in my half-century in this life. Catholic democrats just voted a second time for a candidate who is waging an unjust, immoral and unprovoked war against God's Church, our Church. Our only crime, as the Catholic democrats' candidate sees it, is that we choose to obey Our Lord, regarding respect for His precious gift of life, as opposed to obeying a rabidly secularist executive branch and their contempt for God's precious gift. Our Church leaders have made clear they will not obey this unjust law. I am sickened that this is happening in the country which, in my childhood, was a beacon of freedom of religion. What hurts the painful wound even more is that Catholic democrats could go to Mass on Sunday and vote for the author of this monstrous "law" on Tuesday. What could cause Catholic democrats to vote for this? Surely not that their candidate thinks it should be legal to kill girls and boys outside of their mom's womb just after they survived the attempt to kill them in the womb? Surely not that what God calls an abomination, the Catholic democrats' candidate calls marriage? Surely not his refusal to acknowledge Our Lord on Thanksgiving Day? Perhaps Catholic democrats saw dollar signs in front of their eyes. But the brutal "social justice" economy brought on by their candidate is sinking us in unsustainable debt like Greece. It is giving us high unemployment, high poverty, lower incomes and declining personal wealth. I offer the pain I feel to Our Lord. As a child, this attack on His Church is something we heard was happening in countries so far away. Our nuns led us in prayer for those countries. I ask the Blessed Mother to get the Catholic children in other countries to pray for the conversion of Catholic democrats so we in America can have a restoration of freedom of religion and respect for human life and for God's Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
Bill Sr.
5 months ago
We are ready to celebrate Christmas once again and everyone who thinks he is "Christian" will for a while be thinking of that wondrous event a couple of thousand years ago.

There is no need to go into how it has been so commercialized that the real meaning of the most significant event in all human history has been more or less reduced to glamorizing the art of gift giving for adults and a child's best bedtime story ever with new toys or clothing to boot.

We should recall the birth of Christ was a really very personal thing for one young woman as well as the amazing singular moment in time which changed the course of history for mankind's existence.

This awesome moment came about as a result of the decision that a young woman made nine months earlier when asked if the Spirit of the Most High God could be allowed to come into her very soul and body in order to bring salvation to suffering humanity. Frightened by the very presence of the Spirit of God to which she had dedicated her life there before her, yet certain of her desire to please her Lord she humbly surrendered herself to His personal plan for her and His universal plan for mankind. That decision, that surrender and that act of faith formed the foundation for what we proudly cherish as Christianity today.

Knowing this we need to view the joy of Christmas not only for God's great gift of His redeeming Son but also the opportunity to thank Mary for her most gracious and humble offering of total personal submission to the will of God for the benefit of all mankind. The shouts and praise hailed to all the kings of this world for their triumphs over the centuries are whispers compared to Mary's gentle but earthshaking voice that night when she softly answered "yes" to God and said "be it done unto me according to your Will".

So, with this perspective, whether we realize it or not we can and do in fact celebrate Christmas every time we devotedly and faithfully say "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death"..

Comments submitted must be civil, remain on-topic and not violate any laws including copyright. We reserve the right to delete any comments which are abusive, inappropriate or not constructive to the discussion.

Though we invite robust discussion, we reserve the right to not publish any comment which denigrates the human person, undermines marriage and the family, or advocates for positions which openly oppose the teaching of the Catholic Church.

This is a supervised forum and the Editors of Catholic Online retain the right to direct it.

We also reserve the right to block any commenter for repeated violations. Your email address is required to post, but it will not be published on the site.

We ask that you NOT post your comment more than once. Catholic Online is growing and our ability to review all comments sometimes results in a delay in their publication.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

Send me important information from Catholic Online and it's partners. See Sample

Post Comment