Weekday - Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception - This year is December 9th. .(Years ABC)
Weekday - Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception - This year is December 9th. .(Years ABC)
Genesis 3:9-15, 20
Psalm 97:1-4. "Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous deeds."
Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12
Gospel Acclamation: cf Luke 1:28. Alleluia, alleluia! Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women. Alleluia!
Gospel: Luke 1:26-38
Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed ID: 628121756 Blessed Virgin Mary with baby Jesus. Artistic abstract modern colorful design. Digital illustration made without reference image. By Thoom
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To listen to the audio recording of the readings, prayers and reflections for this feast of The Immaculate Conception - This year is December 9th. , please click this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-the-2/s-T2fYkt97Qm4
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
{{Joy and peace to everyone}}
On this special (feast of) Feast Of The Immaculate Conception
Coming together as Gods family, let us call to mind our sins.
Lord jesus, you humble the proud and exalt the lowly. Lord have mercy.
You fill the hungry with good things, and The self-sufficient you send away empty. Christ have mercy.
Your mercy reaches from age to age for those who revere you. Lord have mercy.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
(Gloria)
Collect (Immaculate Conception)
Let us pray.
(that we too will be admitted to the presence of God)
O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son,
grant, we pray,
that, as you preserved her from every stain
by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw,
so, through her intercession,
we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
3. Save us, Saviour of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free.
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PREFACE: Immaculate conception.
Euch .Prayer: 3
(PROPOSED THEME Marian hymns)
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{Thank you, everyone, for participating in this superb feast of the immaculate conception… and for giving generously to god and to our christian community, of your time and prayerfulness.}
Dismissal:
go and announce the gospel of the lord..
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HOMILY:
The Immaculate Conception
(8 December) (this year only, it is moved to Monday December 9th)
Prologue: This feast had its origin in the East as the "Conception of Mary by Saint Anne". It spread through the West during the Middle Ages as the "Immaculate Conception" and was extended to the entire Western Church in the eighteenth century. The feast celebrates Mary, preserved from sin from the moment of conception; she is the first fruits of her Son's redemption and a prophetic model of what the Church is called to be.
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Although this is a very special feast celebrating Mary's life, this feast, as all feasts and solemnities are, is really about God and what God has achieved through the wonderful grace and blessings God has showered upon his beloved children, and on this occasion the superb and wondrous plan of God that envisaged and made a reality through the first moment of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Whenever we pause to turn our attention to contemplate Mary and praise God and celebrate the life of Mary, this first and most perfect disciple of Christ always humbly points us, in turn, towards her beloved Son, God's Son, who is the reason and cause of all our joy and hope. Mary, although fully human, was conceived without sin and remained sinless throughout her life.
By this feast we remember the earliest beginnings of Mary's existence, and also contemplate our own earliest beginning, and the love at the very heart of our origins. Ultimately, we all belong to God, a God of the most profound and overflowing love and generosity. God's plans of love and inclusion for his children began well before time began.
We were imagined by God long before we came to be. We were all lovingly brought into existence, created by God, through God's loving grace, that same source of love that brought the whole of creation into existence. God's love claims Mary's entire existence.
We too seek to allow God to envelop our whole selves, now and always. The Immaculate Conception which we're celebrating today is defined like this. To become the mother of our Saviour, Mary was enriched by God, with gifts appropriate to such a role.
That is, God gave her the graces and gifts needed to allow God to achieve his plan for the salvation of humanity through her cooperation. The angel Gabriel at the moment of the Annunciation salutes her as full of grace. In fact, in order for Mary to be able to give the free ascent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation, it was necessary that she be wholly born by God's grace.
Through the centuries, the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, full of grace through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception, as Pope Pius IX officially proclaimed in 1854. The Most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and the privilege from Almighty God, and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. The splendor of entirely unique holiness by which Mary is enriched from the first instant of her conception comes wholly from Christ.
She is redeemed, in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son. The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person, in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and chose her, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him in love. There's a nice quote from scripture scholar and theologian Gustavo Gutierrez.
Mary is aware of all the implications of her accepting God's will. And she says, here I am, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word. In the Canticle of the Magnificat, Mary will again call herself a servant.
Luke's Gospel has in mind the meaning of the Hebrew's word, which we translate by servant. It means, I belong completely to God. Servants are those who announce the Lord's message completely, and those who receive a mission.
Belonging to God is expressed by our total availability, by our welcoming his plan for our lives and our world. Mary does not ask for a sign from the angel Gabriel, in the way that Zechariah had demanded and doubted in earlier Luke's Gospel. She shows her complete trust and confidence in the will of God.
Mary makes God's will her own, in her entire selfhood, in her whole life and in her body. We're called to do the same. The reading from the Ephesians today shows the deep meaning of our human existence.
We've come into this world for the purpose of fully realizing our full calling to be daughters and sons of God. Being God's children is not something added from outside the human condition. Instead, it's our very reason for being.
The grace of God's love is the first and the last word upon everything. However, we cannot accept God's plan of love and peace if we don't first incarnate God's plan. That is to say, to make God's plan a concrete reality in our lives.
To enflesh God's word. To make it a tangible part of our daily lives and existence. In order to achieve this, we first need to get rid of any selfishness and willfulness, and we must trust and rely and act upon the grace and vision of God, as Mary did so perfectly, and take risks in the strength of this trust and obedience, again as Mary did so wonderfully.
All praise and blessing to our beautiful and loving God for the wonderful things God has achieved through his extraordinary plan to utilize the full and free cooperation of the all people. Praised indeed be to God, whose wonderful and astounding plan of salvation for the whole world, including his loving and freely cooperative plan for Mary's life, which began before her conception and anticipated the salvation that Christ would later achieve by his death and resurrection to save us all.
O Mary, The Immaculate Conception. Pray for us.
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References:
Fr Paul W. Kelly
1. Quote from a pamphlet: "Mary: God's radical daughter." Published by CATHOLIC ENQUIRY CENTRE. Copyright: The Australian Episcopal Conference of the Roman Catholic Church, 1994
2. Vatican.va. (2019). Catechism of the Catholic Church - "Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary". [online] Available at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a3p2.htm [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019]).
3. Gutiérrez, G. and Dees, C. (1997). Sharing the Word through the liturgical year. 1st ed. Maryknoll: Orbis Books. pp 280-281.
4. Prologue from Liturgy Brisbane Resource.
Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed ID: 628121756 Blessed Virgin Mary with baby Jesus. Artistic abstract modern colorful design. Digital illustration made without reference image. By Thoom
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
To listen to my weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here.
NB - It is often a week or so Ahead: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks
You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address: paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)
"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.
Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).
Sung "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" - By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria. Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org .
Marian Hymn –– "Rainfall – Hail Holy Queen." Music by Paul W. Kelly. 1994, 2021. Words by Paul kelly, based on the Traditional Salve Regina Hymn. Arranged & with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2021. https://www.airgigs.com/user/stefankelk
Reflection Hymn post communion - Salve Regina (tono simple) 450 voces coro virtual Música Católica. https://cantocatolico.org/salve-regina/
Magnificat (Praise and sing to God)- (July 2021) -Music by Paul W. Kelly. (1985, 2010, 2021), Lyrics inspired by Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55). Music arranged, with adapted lyrics by Stefan de Freyne Kelk. [https://www.airgigs.com/user/stefankelk ] July 1, 2021.
[ Production - KER -2024]
May God bless and keep you.
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