The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

From the Rev. Father Kulczynski

It is fitting that our celebration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary coincides with the Season of Advent, as it is celebrated exactly nine months before the feast of her Birth on September 8th. For She, who is the Immaculate Conception, is the model of what we hope to become during this Holy Season. She is for us a model of silent listening and contemplation. . . Of emptying ourselves before the Lord . . . and waiting in openness for the arrival of Him who will fill us with His Holy Spirit.

This season calls us to Make Room in our Hearts for Him. The very instruction implies that there may be something in the way, something that clutters our spirit, clearly it is Sin.

And so we do well to turn our gaze on this Solemnity to the Most Pure and Most Holy Virgin Mary. For being Conceived without sin was Prepared from all eternity by the will of God so that at the appointed time there would be ROOM for the Lord in the very being of His Faithful Servant. For we know that when he would visit He would not find A ROOM in the world which He had created. For we are told that at his coming — There was no ROOM for Him in the place where travelers stayed. Yet in fact it is rather in the hearts of his disciples that He desires to dwell.

The Gospel of the second Sunday of Advent presented to us the figure of John the Baptist, who in the midst of the desert of Judea called people to Conversion of heart that they would be prepared at the imminent coming of the Messiah.

St. Gregory the Great said that the Baptist “preaches RIGHT FAITH — AND GOOD WORKS so that the power of grace might penetrate, that the roads to God be cleared that He might come without delay.

In the time of Advent, we are called to listen to God’s voice which resounds in the desert of this world through the sacred Scriptures.

Our Faith is strengthened — and we may more easily walk its path when it is illuminated by the Divine Word. The Virgin Mary is for us the model of listening. We may contemplate in the Mother of God a life totally shaped by the Word as we come to realize that we too are called to enter into the mystery of faith by which Christ comes to dwell in our lives.

St. Ambrose reminds us: “Every Christian believer in some way interiorly conceives and gives birth to the Word of God” The Savior came by the FREE WILL of God and so the decision of Faith consists in FREELY WELCOMING him who already draws near to us.

The Redeemer comes in our joys and our anxieties, in our clarity, and in our perplexities and temptations, in everything that constitutes the nature of our life.

During these Holy Days let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to sustain us on this Spiritual Journey, to teach us to empty ourselves in order to provide a place where He can dwell, and so welcome Him at his coming with great Faith and with deep Love.
May we all know deep peace and great joy during this holy season,