Dec. 8, 2010 Wednesday: Immaculate Conception, Solemnity
Often in the confessional I’m asked, “Father, I have been a convert to Catholicism for a while, and I still don’t understand why we put so much emphasis on Mary.” Sometimes, when I’m asked that, I give the following explanation:
Once I was also very opposed to the whole idea of Mary taking any prominent role, overshadowing Jesus. I came back to the Catholic Church after attending the Methodist church, a non-denominational church, Assembly of God church, and the Episcopalian church. So I had deep reservations about Mary, until I had a very profound experience watching a movie on Our Lady of Fatima. Blessed Mother appeared to three little children in a little town of Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Some believed, but many did not believe that she could be appearing. People asked for a sign, and on Oct. 13, 1917, nearly 70,000 people gathered in a large field in drenching rain, hoping to catch a glimpse of a sign. Before their eyes, the clouds parted, the torrential rain stopped, and the Sun literally danced for several minutes. After watching that movie, I said to myself, either the 70,000 people who saw the Miracle of the Sun were all wrong or it really happened. Then I allowed the tightly shut door of my heart to be opened by Blessed Mother.
Sometimes I ask Blessed Mother, “Why did God choose me to be priest?” You know there are days when I feel I’m inadequate as a priest, anxious about preaching before hundreds of people, giving Last Rites to a dying person, and counseling a married couple whose marriage is about to break up. The mystery of why God chooses us to accomplish His Will, is contained in our Gospel today. In the Gospel, a young teenage girl is greeted by Archangel Gabriel announcing the impossible—that she’ll bear the Son of the Most High and bring Him to the world. What a mission! A frail, humble teenager was chosen to bring our Lord to the world. If God is willing to choose a young teenager for the impossible task, does God ask ordinary us to do the extraordinary? Yes. He asks us, like He did with Blessed Mother, to bring His Son into the world through us. Mother Teresa often said, “God loves the world through us…the way you touch people, the way you smile at people.”
Mother Teresa gives us this advice. “We must not only love and venerate Our Lady, but to fly to Her with child-like confidence in all her joys and sorrows. We must imitate her virtues and abandon ourselves completely into her hands.” But will not loving and venerating Our Lady take away from loving Jesus, who should be our ultimate goal? Mother Teresa said, “With Our Lady, we make more progress in the love of Jesus in one month than we make in years while living less united to this good Mother.” Jesus longs for us, and He longs for us to reach Him, the shortest way, the surest way, and the quickest way which is through His Mother Mary.
At my bedside, I have a picture of Blessed Mother next to the lamp. Before I go to sleep, I kiss the picture and say, “Good night, Mama.” When I get up the next morning, I kiss the picture and say, “Good morning, Mama.” I entrust my day to her. I know that she is Mother to us all, given to all of us by her Son Jesus to guard, protect, and assist us, constantly bringing us to her Son Jesus. Mother Teresa reminds us, “If we stand with Our Lady, she will give us her spirit of loving trust, total surrender, and cheerfulness.”
