Text of the Eucharistic adoration of December 8, 2016

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Dear Jesus the Eucharist, today, feast of the Immaculate Conception, we want to press under the motherly mantle of Your and our dear Mother. Every time we celebrate this anniversary our mind goes back over the years to the moments experienced by our community. It was in Lourdes that our Bishop and Marisa began the mission that brought them to their sacrifice for the Church and built, with love and suffering, that thread, invisible to the eyes of men, tying the apparitions of the Immaculate Conception to those of the Mother of the Eucharist. Their life was imprinted with the mark of God, a mark of originality and purity and the Mother of the Eucharist has always been on their side, as a mother, counselor, encouraging comforter, protector but especially guardian of her children to whom she gave all of herself. The title Mother of the Eucharist is the most beautiful and important title that Our Lady told us to love in a special way, through the letters of God. Our Lady has made known her life by dictating to Marisa the book "Tu sei Madre dell’Eucaristia" so as to show all of us the road that we must cover by following her example. Today, we want to read again some passages from the book on the life of the Mother of the Eucharist, for they are valuable to better understand the importance that Mary had in the history of human redemption. It is from this book that everyone can understand, learn, and reshape their Christian lifestyle.

From the book: “Tu sei Madre dell’Eucaristia”

...He created man because He loves him; man, therefore, must turn to God with the prayer of his heart. God wanted me to see and taste the universe he created. He, One and Triune, did not need anyone and anything; not even men. However he created man and loved him with the greatest love of the universe: Adam and Eve were created perfect, with great and wonderful gifts. According to God’s will, Adam became ruler and lord of the earth, but, along with Eve, rejected God and sinned by pride. By listening to the voice of the serpent, he, in fact, preferred Satan to God, his Father and Creator and betrayed Him; so it was driven out from the earthly paradise, the Garden of Eden. Nevertheless, God continued to love him as His son and His creature and wanted to create for him the plan of salvation: the Incarnation of the Divine Son. I was chosen to become the Mother of God: always present in His mind, I was created perfect, immaculate, without stain of sin and without blemishes. God lavished on me the gifts you invoke me: "Woman full of grace and free from all blame", "human creature endowed by God with supernatural, preternatural and natural gifts"... God created me beautiful, pure and full of grace, His gaze was down on me, He was enchanted and enamored by my soul. When I was praying at home or in the temple I understood how immense the works that God had done in me were. The angels and archangels sang with me the great glory of God, my All, my Father. I was fully obedient to my parents, the virtue of obedience grew in me more and more after they died. I was God’s humble servant, always ready to obey and to follow His way, He who loves the simple and humble; God rejects the haughty, the arrogant, the proud and fills with fatherly love those who feel poor. I no longer had my parents, I had no earthly affection: I had nothing left but God! For my soul He was enough, was my All. From sunrise until sunset my soul was enraptured in ecstasy before God, my All... This continuous union between God and me made me grow spiritually: I was more and more aware that I was His humble servant. When in the temple I prayed to God, my All, I was so engrossed to attract the attention of teachers and priests. I was feeling like nothing before God, but His love came into me flooding and working my soul, preparing it for great things. The Holy Spirit was shaping me to my great mission. When man comes to a deep union with the All, to a great height, he can repeat with St. Paul " It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20)".

Let us pray Mary the Immaculate, full of grace, who in order to be closer to us, wanted to share with mankind the deepest sufferings: deprived at an early age by her parents Joachim and Anna, was forced into exile when, together with baby Jesus and St. Joseph, fled to Egypt because of Herod, he was soon a widow, after St. Joseph’s long illness, always living in poverty. She was the Mother to whom they killed the innocent Son through the most painful and ignominious death that existed at the time; despite that, Mary has not spoken the slightest word of rebellion against God. She did not claim a privileged status, as immune from original sin, and accepted to become the mother of all sinners. We need to take her as an example and thank God for this amazing creature and to have had the privilege of in-depth knowledge of her existence. Let us plead with Mary to intercede with her Son, for all the people sharing today the same suffering that she suffered during her earthly life.

From Don Claudio Gatti’s explanatory notes in the book: “Tu sei Madre dell’Eucaristia”

...We are not fully aware of the fullness of grace in Mary, because we cannot understand what perfection and spiritual richness God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit has raised this human creature. It can be said that the fullness of grace is Mary’s main feature; in fact, she is greeted by the Archangel Gabriel as "full of grace"; this means that Mary is identified in the one who is "full of grace". The last part of the angelic greeting, "The Lord is with you", makes us understand that Mary, from the very first moment of her existence and forever, has had this fullness of grace: she was the first to be redeemed by Christ because to her have been applied in advance the merits of Christ. Mary is immune from original sin and from every blemish and this is a dogma of faith proclaimed by Pius IX in 1854 and confirmed by Our Lady at Lourdes when, appearing in 1858 to Bernadette, she said: "I am the Immaculate Conception". With this creature humanity is back on the reconciliation path with God and God is back to familiarize with humanity. For the fact of being "full of grace" Mary is especially powerful with God on our behalf. We turn to this woman not as strangers but as children attracted by her love, covered by her protection, supported by her help. Thanks to the supernatural, preternatural and natural gifts she received from God, Mary lived an intimate, deep and exclusive relationship with the Holy Trinity, as the beloved daughter of God the Father, Mother full of love of God the Son and chaste and humble bride of God the Holy Spirit. The grace that fully and permanently adorned Mary’s soul enabled her to participate in the divine nature in a far greater way than the angels themselves. The theological virtues -faith, hope, charity- were present in Mary in such a rich and lively way that she was constantly and deeply united with God. God granted Mary with preternatural gifts as well. While being immune from suffering, she suffered lot because she wanted to be intimately united to the suffering of the Divine Son. God the Father has shown that this was His will while God the Holy Spirit sustained her with the fullness of grace when facing all the sufferings... The third preternatural gift that God has given Mary is the exemption from death. Death is the consequence and the punishment for the original sin (Gen 3:3). Through sin, death passed upon all men, for they all have sinned (Rom 5:12). Only the Very Blessed Virgin Mary is preserved free from all stains of original sin from the first instant of her conception; that was by singular grace and privilege of our Almighty God, in respect of the merits of Jesus Christ, savior of mankind.

Let us pray to God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit so that even in trials we may surrender completely. We want to ask that the great gifts bestowed in the thaumaturgic place may be accepted by all and bring those fruits of love and peace that the world so desperately needs. We ask forgiveness when we did not follow Mary’s example in surrendering to God or when we were not apostles and witnesses of the great works accomplished by our Lord. We also ask for Mary’s intercession, so we are able to grow in the love for God and for our brothers, following the path she walked.