{"id":890,"date":"2012-12-08T12:13:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-08T17:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=890"},"modified":"2012-12-08T12:15:05","modified_gmt":"2012-12-08T17:15:05","slug":"the-immaculate-conception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/the-immaculate-conception\/","title":{"rendered":"The Immaculate Conception"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today (December 8th) we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary<\/a>.\u00a0 This year it falls on Saturday but because it is our National Feast Day in the United States, it remains a Holy Day of Obligation<\/a>.\u00a0 I serve as Pastor at Immaculate Conception Church<\/a> in Ithaca so it is also the patron feast day of our church and school.<\/p>\n

When some people hear “Immaculate Conception” they think of Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb.\u00a0 The gospel reading <\/a>for today is the story of the Annunciation but the Immaculate Conception we celebrate today is not Jesus’ conception but rather Mary.<\/p>\n

At the Annunciation<\/a>, Mary said yes to God.\u00a0 At the Wedding Feast of Cana<\/a>, Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them.\u00a0 Mary is the one who does God’s Will.<\/p>\n

God transcends time and knew from the beginning that Mary was say yes.\u00a0 Thus, when Mary was conceived in her mother’s womb, God ensured that she was conceived without Original Sin <\/a>so that she would be worthy to carry Jesus in her womb.\u00a0 Our prayers at Mass today speak of “prevenient grace.”\u00a0 <\/em>That’s grace given before that is given in anticipation of Mary’s yes.\u00a0 That’s the Immaculate Conception.<\/p>\n

Our first reading from Genesis and our gospel reading <\/a>for this feast tell the story of two women, Eve and Mary.\u00a0 Eve was the first woman.\u00a0 In those days there was only one commandment from God.\u00a0 They were not to eat of the fruit of just one tree.\u00a0 Just one commandment and Eve, tempted by the serpent, broke that commandment.\u00a0 That’s Original Sin<\/a>.\u00a0 That sin that began with Eve lead to the suffering we knew in this world.<\/p>\n

Our gospel reading tells how the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to proclaim that she was to be the mother of our Savior Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Mary did not understand how this could be but she trusted in God’s Word and said yes.\u00a0 From her “yes” comes our salvation.<\/p>\n

God has a plan for each of us.\u00a0 When we say ‘no’ to God bad things happen.\u00a0 It’s not that God is mad at us and causes the bad things to happen.\u00a0 Rather God doesn’t want us to do “bad things” because He knows what will happen.\u00a0 When we say “yes” to God, incredibly good things can happen.<\/p>\n

Mary is our example.\u00a0 Let us all have the grace we need to say yes to God.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today (December 8th) we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.\u00a0 This year it falls on Saturday but because it is our National Feast Day in the United States, it remains a Holy Day of Obligation.\u00a0 I serve as Pastor at Immaculate Conception Church in Ithaca so it is also …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘The Immaculate Conception’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-em","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}