Immaculate Conception

This is my prayer box. It sits at my dining room table on the floor near a window, hidden from all that walk in my door.  It has my bible, my journal, pens, and other devotional books which are interchanged as time passes throughout the seasons of our Catholic liturgical church year.

I am sure we all have rituals that we go through in our prayer lives, each very private and yet unique. I have several bibles, one for my purse, one for adoration and one for home, and then there are others. Today, instead of reaching for my bible, I pulled out the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" book.  I re-read the profession of my faith and then moved to the section of the Immaculate Conception, item #488 since today is a Holy Day of Obligation, the 'Immaculate Conception'.

It reads:
"God sent forth his Son," but to prepare a body for him, he wanted the free cooperation of a creature.  For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary". #490, ...The Angel Gabriel at the moment of the annunciation salutes her as "full of grace."

I pondered upon Mary's role this morning, her state of grace and how privilege the almighty God placed such merits upon her to carry our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Mary brought Him into the world and blessed all of mankind.  She is so pure.  We are so blessed.

I have been blessed by God to birth four amazing children into the world, so they too can carry out the message of God. However, having said that, we carry the stain of sin upon us and in our attempts to love and move His message to our neighbor, family, friend we often times fail. In our failure though, through God's unconditional love, He opens His arms wide and helps us back up on our feet so we can start all over again.  Mary was pure and holy without a single sin to prevent her from that one thing called 'love'.

It is the season to move beyond the past and move forward with new light that God wants us to shine and bring forth to those that do not know Him.  It is the season to re-read the messages/stories of Jesus and to be reminded that in Mary's obedience, her consent to God, she aided in the salvation of all of the human race.

Today, my prayer is this:

Hail Mary full of grace,
the Lord is with Thee.  
Blessed art thou among women, 
and blessed is the fruit 
of they womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, 
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. 
Amen