Relating, with the Help of Saint Joseph, to Mary as Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
December 8, 2020
Gn 3:9-15.20, Ps 98, Eph 1:3-6.11-12, Lk 1:26-38

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided today’s homily: 

• Today we commemorate the beginning of the life of our spiritual mother. Today we celebrate how the Almighty has done great things to her and lifted up the humble. Today we rejoice in the true beginning of our Redemption, when God, through the merits of his and her Son from 47 years later on the Cross, preserved her “preveniently” from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her life. Today we celebrate God the Father’s Advent, the beginning of the proximate preparation for the Son of God to come into the world. Today we celebrate the triumph of grace over sin and evil and how we’re called to share in, and share with others, that triumph.
• And we do so today in a special way. The same Pope Blessed Pius IX — who in response to the petitions of Catholics throughout the world and in line with the deposit of faith — had solemnly declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on this day in 1854, on this day exactly 150 years ago in 1870 declared Saint Joseph the patron of the universal Church. He chose to make this proclamation on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, because St. Joseph was intimately espoused and connected to this Mystery, through his chaste loving union with the one who described herself to Saint Bernadette as “I am the Immaculate Conception.” If we wish to relate to Mary under this title and reality, there’s no better model as to how to do so than St. Joseph.
  • St. Joseph shows us how to love Mary with tender affection and commitment. She is our “Mother Most Amiable” and Joseph saw that amiability up close and personal. He helps us to learn to love her as a fellow disciple of the Lord, as a spouse of the Holy Spirit, as a Mother of God and of all believers (including Joseph himself!), and as a powerful intercessor.
  • St. Joseph shows us how to protect Mary’s dignity and honor. If God had other, seemingly greater, plans for his betrothed than Joseph felt worthy to assume, he was willing to divorce her quietly so that she could follow God unhindered and not be subject to the brutality of the Mosaic law. He put her first. He likewise protected her and Jesus from Herod and his henchmen. His whole life was dedicated to defending her honor before men. Like Joseph, like Jesus, we, too, are called to have a holy zeal for protecting and promoting her dignity and honor.
  • St. Joseph was absolutely committed to helping Mary live out her vocation before God. Mary’s vocation as Immaculate Conception, as Daughter of Zion, as Mother of God, as Queen of All Saints, very much remains. Saint Joseph assisted her to grow as a faithful Jew, as a fervent disciple, as a physical and spiritual mother, as an intercessor. He allowed her to imitate her Son’s self-giving love, by permitting her to love him in accordance with her vocation as a virginal spouse and Mother of God. St. Joseph shows us how to help Mary live out her vocation as Queen of Heaven and Earth for whom to reign is to serve. He shows us how to receive Mary’s unmerited maternal love.
  • St. Joseph shared Mary’s commitment to Jesus,as they centered their whole lives on him and helped him to fulfill his Messianic mission. St. Joseph helps us to join Mary in centering our existence on Jesus, too, and to share in his redemptive work.
  • St. Joseph is the echo of Mary’s fiat as servant of the Lord.Mary said her “Let it be done to me” in response to the Archangel Gabriel in person; St. Joseph gave his fiat to the Angel multiple times through dreams. Together with her, he helps us to make our whole life an “Amen” to God as well by learning from him prompt obedience.
  • St. Joseph shared in Mary’s enmity for sin, which we hear about today in the Book of Genesis, and in her hunger to live “holy and immaculate” in God’s sight, as we hear in Ephesians. He was a “righteous man,” who was right with God and others, a “just man” who constantly sought to “ad-just” his life to God’s will, as we see in his reaction to God’s messengers in dreams. In a home where the incarnate God and the Immaculate Conception both lived, Joseph strove to live in such a blameless way, receiving Jesus’ and Mary’s help and inspiration.
  • St. Joseph shows us how to consecrate ourselves to Mary, to entrust ourselves to her intercession, to allow her to train us in the school of grace. As he provided for her and for Jesus, they reciprocated and he humbly received. As we celebrate today the beginning of the triumph of grace, we recognize that the greatest alumnus of that school of holiness, the foremost partaker of grace’s victory, is St. Joseph.
• Mary’s and Joseph’s common life was thoroughly Eucharistic, centered on Christ, whom they held in their arms, whom they loved with affection, whom they adored at home. Their entire home in Bethlehem, in Egypt, and in Nazareth was like a corporal in which they participated with Jesus in the oblation of his entire life, as they offered their work as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God the Father. Together they help us to learn how to love him with greater reverence and to join Jesus’ total self-offering. Today on this day in which we ask Mary conceived without original sin to pray for us who have recourse to her, we likewise turn to St. Joseph with true recourse to his protection and patronage, so that one day, with both of them, we might share in the eternal Eucharistic feast in that heavenly Nazareth where we will experience the full triumph of what Mary’s Immaculate Conception was the first installment.

The readings for today’s Mass were:

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