THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY - 2025

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women. LK 1:28

GENESIS 3:9-15,20

My Soul's Beloved, 

It is only after we sin that we wish to hide from Your holy and penetrating gaze. The sinless Adam was always visible to You; You did not have to seek him or call out to him, asking, 'Where are you?' But after he committed the sin of disobedience, and he heard Your voice calling to him, he was filled with shame, and he hid. So it is with us all, Lord. We have no shame when we give in to the temptation to sin; it is only when we have to face its consequences that we begin to experience the shame we ought to have felt the moment we were tempted and ought to have refrained from doing so.

It is easy to blame everyone else for our lapses in judgment and wounding our identity as children of God. All sin is abhorrent to You, and grave sin separates us permanently from You if we die without repentance. Sin makes us vulnerable, and this vulnerability should be the catalyst for us to seek to make amends by going to Confession and putting ourselves right before You, my Lord. Instead, most of us tell ourselves it's ok, and that God will understand, or we either make light of our sins and their gravity, convincing ourselves it's no big deal. It is only when we have to suffer the consequences of our actions that we either hide from You out of fear or we brazenly pretend that we did nothing wrong. Either way, we suffer the loss of our peace when we rupture our relationship with You. 

Adam immediately denied responsibility for his action, blaming the woman whom he at first loved and delighted in, when in truth, he ought to have stopped her at once from disobeying God. He got taken in by the lie that the devil had fed her because he desired to possess what was not his to have. We, too, O Lord, are no different from our first parents. Original sin has tainted us all except our blessed Mother, whose feast of the Immaculate Conception we celebrate today. 

Thank You, Lord, for giving us so powerful an intercessor who pleads before Your glorious throne for her poor, unfortunate children who weep and moan in this valley of tears. By the power of her prayers for us, bring us at last into Your glorious Presence there to remain with You in bliss eternally.

After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’
Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,
‘Be accursed beyond all cattle,
all wild beasts.
You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust
every day of your life.
I will make you enemies of each other:
you and the woman,
your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head
and you will strike its heel.’
The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.

PSALM 97(98):1-4

Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.

Sing a new song to the Lord
for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
have brought salvation.

The Lord has made known his salvation;
has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
for the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
ring out your joy.

Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.

EPHESIANS 1:3-6,11-12

LUKE 1:26-38