Feast of the Immaculata

Mary's free 'yes' to God - her fiat is the sign of her sinless nature, so free was she to see what great good God was working in her and through her, and to accept it without hesitation or demand. Sermon at the First Evensong of the Immaculate Conception.

La Inmaculada Concepción, by Francisco Rizi, Museo del Prado (Wikimedia Commons)

And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.

When the Blessed Virgin Mary began appearing to St Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, people were, to say the least, sceptical. None more so than the local Curé, Abbé Peyramale, he ordered the other priests to have nothing to do with the apparitions or the grotto, and wrote to the Bishop for advice. One one occasion, the Curé had Bernadette ask the lady who she was. At first she did not answer, she merely smiled – and Monsuir Peyramale told Bernadette to stop going to see her.

Bernadette persisted, asking every day for a fortnight the same question of the lady: who are you. She wrote this, on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March 1858;

After the fortnight I asked her three times consecutively. She always smiled. At last I tried for the fourth time. She stopped smiling. With her arms down, she raised her eyes to heaven and then, folding her hands over her breast she said, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

It had been four years since Pope Pius IX dogmatically declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and now on the Feast of the Annunciation here was a definite sign from heaven affirming the Holy Father’s declaration: I am the immaculate conception. This would, eventually, prove decisive to Abbé Peyramale, and the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception would begin to be built under his auspices.

There is a fittingness, that the Immaculate conception should be announced by the Blessed Mother on the feast of the Annunciation – because on that feast and in its Gospel we see both the cause and the effect of her special sanctification – we see the Archangel address her as Kecharitomene – you who are already full of grace. We see the announcement of her divine maternity, that she and she alone has been chosen from all ages to bear the Son of God into this world and so to have a decisive role as Mediatrix of All Graces and (say it quietly) Coredemptrix as a cooperator with each person of the Most Holy Trinity. And finally, we see the fruit of her preservation from Sin. Her fiat. Ecce Ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, or, as the King James Version has it; Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.

Her fiat and her immaculate conception go hand in hand – she is free from sin and all stain of sin, and thus perfectly free to recognise the mighty thing God is offering to do in her, free to see the great good done for the whole of humanity in her, and free to say yes without hesitation or making any demands. Her perfect freedom from Sin made possible our redemption in Christ.

When Pius IX proclaimed this dogma, he did so in the hope that we, the faithful people of God, would turn again to this most perfect advocate, the Queen of heaven, and I quote here from Ineffabilis Deus;

that the most Blessed Virgin will ensure by her most powerful patronage that all difficulties be removed and all errors dissipated, so that our Holy Mother the Catholic Church may flourish daily more and more throughout all the nations and countries, and may reign “from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth,” and may enjoy genuine peace, tranquility and liberty.

He goes on:

We are firm in our confidence that she will obtain pardon for the sinner, health for the sick, strength of heart for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help for those in danger; that she will remove spiritual blindness from all who are in error, so that they may return to the path of truth and justice, and that here may be one flock and one shepherd.

For these intentions, we offer our prayers, that she who was conceived without Original Sin, that she who announced herself as Immaculata to St Bernadette, that she who was, is, and ever shall be the most perfect handmaid of the Lord, will intercede for us – that we too may be freed from Sin, and come to rejoice in heaven alongside her and all the saints.

Mother inviolate, mother most perfect, mother without stain of original sin, pray for us, and all your children.