Text of the Eucharistic adoration of December 8, 2017
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
From the Bishop's Homily of December 8, 2008
Now I ask you to make an effort with your imagination, your heart and your intelligence in fixing your eyes on the soul of the one we celebrate today: the Immaculate Conception. Some of you may say: "How is this possible? We are not yet in the condition to be able to see, admire and be amazed by the soul of Our Lady". I then tell you: beware, in the Word of God, in the Scripture we always find the possibility to understand the truth, at least in the way and in the measure suitable to our human situation. This passage from the letter of St. Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians is providential (2nd reading):
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will - to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory".
I have already accustomed you to see that everything that is present in us, given to us by God, must be multiplied by an immense number when we refer to Our Lady. When Paul states: "God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing", it means that if God generously grants his children gifts, charismata, aid and spiritual support, to Our Lady they are granted in a perfect and complete way. If there were any doubts, I invite you to read again what Paul says further on: "He chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless". God has chosen every creature. Those who choose Christ, and through Him present themselves to the Father by accepting the work of Redemption, can become holy and blameless. So, if they wanted to, all men could be become like that before God and the Immaculate and blameless par excellence is Our Lady.
Imagine a landscape or a masterpiece that we certainly cannot perceive as yet in its depth and its greatness. What we can see in Mary must be a reason to be pleased, as God was pleased when facing this masterpiece.
My beloved, Our Lady is the most perfect, noblest, holiest masterpiece that came from his Omnipotence; God could not grant a creature any more than he gave to Our Lady. In our litanies we invoke her: "Mother and Teacher of every virtue"; she is the Mother and Teacher of total abandonment to God and today we take her as a luminous example to follow. Who, more than Mary, had the gift of the theological virtue of faith from God? Nobody, for you know that the quantity and elevation of every theological virtue "faith, hope and charity" depends on the quantity of sanctifying grace that is in the soul that loves, hopes and believes. Since this immense grace is in Mary, her faith is immense, that's why I put you before this masterpiece and I say to you: look, love and imitate Our Lady's faith.
From the book "You are Mother of the Eucharist"
"I was immersed in prayer, praising God with psalms and songs, when a strong light shone before me; I saw my archangel Gabriel who always followed me from birth, and I heard him greeting me like this: "Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you". My heart leapt with joy. God, my All, had commanded the angels that when they would utter my name they had to praise the blessed trinity: my inner and outer beauty was a reason to glorify God. I, the creature chosen by God, was delighted to see what God had lavished on me: only those who truly love God can realize the beauty of his works. The sun, the moon and the stars are not as beautiful as a soul in a state of grace. I never asked any why: everything was decided by God for me; I accepted with love and I was happy to do his will. Grace made me beautiful in the eyes of God".
From Don Claudio Gatti's explanatory notes in the book "You are Mother of the Eucharist"
Mary is hailed as the full of grace, as the one who is without original sin, without the shadow of the smallest imperfection because the merits of the Divine Son were applied to her in advance; this is why Mary is the first of the redeemed. Not only was she the first redeemed by the Son, but she was enriched by many graces and by such gifts that God himself established with her an uninterrupted, complete and particular union. God wants the incarnation to be accomplished by Mary's free acceptance; so God and man reconcile, meet and love each other in Virgin Mary's heart. Man returns to God who dresses him with the most beautiful dress: the grace; he is admitted to the banquet of God: the Eucharist, thus becoming commensal with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Creation is renewed, man becomes a new creature for Mary's "Yes". She, the Virgin Mother, is the lily and the rose. It is the most beautiful, most fragrant and most pleasing lily to God, for she generates Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35); she is the rose blooming to the warmth of God's love. We like to represent Mary's virginity with the lily, her divine motherhood with the rose. With her "Yes" she becomes the living tabernacle of God whose presence makes his beneficial effects felt on man and creation. Thus man is redeemed; creation is renewed. We must not forget that sin makes the society, the community and the family where we live more and more uninhabitable, while the presence of God's grace and love guarantees us a better human existence, richer with satisfactory achievements and more open and sensitive to other people's needs.
The great wealth we have meditated in this adoration is a precious casket that our community jealously guards, not because it wants to keep for itself the pearls that were given to us through the Letters of God, the book on the life of the Mother of the Eucharist and from our Bishop in the thaumaturgic place but because, after more than two thousand years, God himself wanted us to understand and experience the beauty of the Creature "par excellence", the one who was created without original sin: Mary. The immaculate, the one who is co-redeemer of the human race, becoming the Mother of the Eucharist by generating her Son Jesus.
Today we want to address her because Jesus himself wanted her to be our mediator as it happened during the marriage in Cana. We ask, through Mary, the graces we need both as individuals, a community and as a human race. At this moment we have the privilege of being before the Mother "through the relic" and before her Son Jesus, present in the Eucharist that we are adoring.
We ask for the intercession of Mary, the Immaculate, to follow her example in loving, preserving and living Jesus the Eucharist.