News Item: : Feast of the Immaculate Conception 2016
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
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Thursday 08 December 2016 - 09:44:09

In celebration of today's great Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we offer a special reflection by Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman. After more than a century it still remains fresh; resounding powerfully with its timeless messages about the importance of spreading the Faith and the final victory of Christ over evil.

The Immaculate Conception

Mary is the Virgo Praedicanda, that is, the Virgin who is to be proclaimed, to be heralded, to be preached.

We are accustomed to preach abroard that which is wonderful, strange, rare, novel, important. Thus, when Our Lord was coming, St. John the Baptist preached him; then, the Apostles went into the wide world, and preached Christ.

What is the highest, the rarest, the choicest prerogative of Mary? It is that She was without sin. When a woman in the crowd cried out to Our Lord, ''Blessed is the womb that bore Thee!'' He answered, ''More blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it.'' Those words were fulfilled in Mary.

She was filled with grace in order to be the Mother of God. But it was a higher gift than Her maternity to be thus sanctified and thus pure. Our Lord indeed would not have become Her Son unless He had first sanctified Her; but still, the greater blessedness was to have that perfect sanctification.

This then is why She is the Virgo Praedicanda; She is deserving to be preached abroard because She never committed any sin, even the least; because sin had no part in Her; because through the fullness of God's grace, She never thought a thought, or spoke a word, or did an action, which was displeasing, which was not most pleasing, to Almighty God; because in Her was displayed the greatest triumph over the enemy of souls.

Wherefore, when all seemed lost, in order to show what He could do for us all by dying for us; in order to show what human nature, His work, was capable of becoming; to show how utterly He could bring to naught the utmost efforts, the most concentrated malice of the foe, and reverse all the consequences of the Fall, Our Lord began, even before His coming, to do His most wonderful act of redemption, in the person of Her who was to be His Mother.

Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman

We wish a Blessed Feast of the Immaculate Conception - complete with many graces and blessings - to all our readers!

O Mary conceived without sin - Pray for us who have recourse to thee! (x3)  

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1489 )