Novena to the Immaculate Conception

FIRST DAY

"Wishing in His supreme goodness and wisdom to effect the redemption of the world, "when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman so that we might receive the adoption of sons". "He, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary". This divine mystery of salvation is revealed to us and continued in the Church, which the Lord established as His body. Joined to Christ the Head and in the unity of fellowship with all His saints, the faithful must in the first place reverence the memory "of the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ". The Virgin Mary, who at the message of the angel received the Word of God in her heart and in her body and gave Life to the world, is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and Mother of the Redeemer. Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son...”.

This is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. There is still no dogma for co-redeemer, but I hope that it will be instituted to be the last gem to be put on the crown that, ideally, is on Our Lady’s head. Mary is presented as the first redeemed, to her were applied the merits of passion, death and resurrection of Christ before they were realized in the Son. God has no limits and applies in advance what is chronologically later, being the master of everything and master of time; this means that He has full and total freedom. I believe and I hope that no theologian has ever said that since the Son was not yet dead and risen, God could not apply to the Mother what the Son would have realized later on. God can do anything, as Our Lady told us often. Man cannot realize earlier what is done later, but God, we know, is not limited by anything; In fact, time exists for us who are subject to its laws, but God is outside of it.

"Redeemed by reason of the merits of her Son and united to Him by a close and indissoluble tie, she is endowed with the high office and dignity of being the Mother of the Son of God, by which account she is also the beloved daughter of the Father and the temple of the Holy Spirit". These concepts are expressed at the beginning of our litanies where it is shown Our Lady’s particular and specific relation with each of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity because, being full of grace, her unique and unrepeatable likeness to God puts her in a situation to live an association and intimate relationship especially with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. No human creature, before, during or after Our Lady can say to be a daughter as she was, in the sense that no creature has yielded an extraordinary spiritual similarity with God. No creature can say to be the Mother of God as she gave life, blood and flesh to the Son of God who became in time his Son too; no-one can claim such a strong and full belonging to the Holy Spirit, giver of all gifts and all graces, as she did who was enriched by the third person of the Most Holy Trinity; we remember her in our litanies as the one who had the supernatural, preternatural and natural gifts.

"...because of this gift of sublime grace she far surpasses all creatures, both in heaven and on earth". Our Lady, despite a human being, is immensely superior in dignity and likeness to the angels who are pure spirits. In a nutshell, the grace present and accumulated in Mary is immensely superior to the grace that is present in the angels and to the one present in men. If we were to compare and quantify it we can say that if we add up all the sanctifying grace that was, is and will be in all the people, it will be less than the grace present in Mary; and this also applies to the angels. To make you understand what God has done for this creature, we must think that all the qualities present in Mary are immense, but not infinite, for this adjective applies to God only. We are faced by someone who is really dazzling us with her grandeur and her immensity. We cannot say much about Our Lady by reasoning alone because this huge amount of graces, gifts, charisms and favors she received from God so exceeds our understanding that we cannot put into words what Mary really is. "At the same time, however, because she belongs to the offspring of Adam she is one with all those who are to be saved. She is the mother of the members of Christ... having cooperated by charity so that the faithful might be born in the Church, who are members of that Head". It is reaffirmed the symbol of Christ who sums up within Himself all the powers and from whom all powers are derived. We remember when, on June 20, 1999, the Lord ordained the Bishop and Our Lady said in the message: "In the name of God I inform you that you have received all the powers". From whom did he receive all the powers? From God we receive powers, not from men; then, if God is entrusting us with a mission, the other should cooperate and not oppose it. If God calls someone to exercise authority with a role in the Church, this someone must comply with it and the others are subordinate to him, for God is greater than any person. Even Our Lady, lately, is repeating these concepts so we may understand them. But the basis of everything Our Lady is saying is in the writing and teaching of the Church.

SECOND DAY

"The Sacred Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testament, as well as ancient tradition…”. The tradition is the set of teachings that the Church has received and preserves, including what was said by the Fathers of the Church, by the doctors of the Church, by the great exegetes and is used to catechize men. “…show the role of the Mother of the Savior in the economy of salvation in an ever clearer light and draw attention to it. The books of the Old Testament describe the history of salvation, by which the coming of Christ into the world was slowly prepared. These earliest documents, as they are read in the Church and are understood in the light of a further and full revelation, bring the figure of the woman in a gradually clearer light...".

Woman is a term of great respect that Christ uses when he addresses his Mother at two extremely significant moments in his life. The first coincides with the beginning of the manifestation of the signs, the miracles, because in John the miracles are signs of the divinity of Christ. On the occasion of the wedding at Cana, in fact, Jesus turns to his mother calling her "Woman". And at an even more dramatic moment, the most crucial of his life, while he is on the cross and is dying, he turns to Mary calling her again "Woman". It can be said, in respect of all women, that Mary is the woman par excellence. If we want to use a simpler term: is more woman than all, is the one who brought to its top the female reality and everything that is part of the female world: emotions, feelings, affections, virtues, grace, sacrifice, immolation; if we think of a feminine quality and we refer to Our Lady, then this quality must be multiplied by an immense potential.

"…Mother of the Redeemer. When it is looked at in this way, she is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise of victory over the serpent which was given to our first parents after their fall into sin". We will clearly see this again on December 8, when we will talk about the struggle between Christ who is the fruit of this woman and the serpent that with his anger will try to pounce at the woman’s heel, without success. This shows that the struggle between good and evil sees, although subordinate to Christ, Our Lady fighting and winning. While chanting Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat, we should always add, with our thought, the “Woman” that most of all worked, suffered and prayed for this victory. "Likewise she is the Virgin who shall conceive and bear a son, whose name will be called Emmanuel. She stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently hope for and receive salvation from Him. With her the exalted Daughter of Sion, and after a long expectation of the promise, the times are fulfilled and the new Economy established (a new salvation plan), when the Son of God took a human nature from her, that He might in the mysteries of His flesh free man from sin". The synthesis of everything that has been said so far is that Mary is present, regarding the salvation plan, in a special way in God’s mind since eternity; salvation comes from men through Christ and Mary. It is an inseparable pair. Those who should grope to dissolve this combination would certainly be in the situation to weaken or not to feel that this salvation plan is realized. We cannot ignore, as far as salvation is concerned, Mary’s presence. That's why St. Bernard said: "De Maria nunquam satis", which means: "Never can be said enough about Mary". To go to her means not to stop, and to be accompanied by the invisible head of the Church, by the One who came into the world to save the world. He, as a son, is before the Mother; for even if He is the son, is the efficient cause of His Mother’s sanctity.

THIRD DAY

We will realize that to read this conciliar document, and precisely the chapter on Our Lady, it is not difficult for us because by now many concepts, after being repeated, have been acquired by us and have become part of our life. When an experience or a relationship is lived intensely, to speak of one or the other is not difficult. When we talk about facts, events or experiences that are out of our life, we are not able to be clear and to make us understood by others. Certainly, expressions and contents that are in this document are theologically high, but we can understand it because our preparation gives us a guarantee of being able to read, listen to and understand the contents of these pages so rich and wonderful. “The Father of mercies willed that the incarnation should be preceded by her acceptance who was predestined to be the mother of His Son, so that just as a woman contributed to death, so also a woman should contribute to life”. This talk and comparison are very familiar for us: Eva gives life and death; the new Eve, Mary, gives life only. Is the relationship between the old and the new Eve, between the old and the new Adam that is widely present in the whole tradition and therefore we should not be surprised if the Second Vatican Council resorted to this image, to this comparison. “That is true in outstanding fashion for the mother of Jesus, who gave the world the very life that renews all things, and who was enriched by God with the gifts which befit such a role”. The word gifts makes us instantly think of the invocation in our litanies. We are in the situation of being rakes that pull and carry away everything but retaining the word of God, the letters of God, the teachings of the Church, of the Fathers and saints and all contribute to a deeper education. "No wonder if among the Fathers formed the habit of calling the mother of God the totally holy and free from every stain of sin, as though fashioned by the Holy Spirit as a new creature. Enriched from the first instant of her conception with the radiance of an entirely unique holiness, the Virgin of Nazareth is greeted by the angel of annunciation, speaking on the orders of God, as the one full of grace". We know the significance of this plenitude, a grace that is so abundant that exceeds all individual graces of all saints of all time and of all angels if they could be added. Mary alone has more graces of all spiritual and non-spiritual creatures, of all angels, of all the saints and men of all time. This is the meaning of full of grace: God has given Mary all the grace that could be given to a creature; He could not give more because if He did we no longer would have a creature before us, but God. "...And to the heavenly messenger she replies: «Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done unto me according to your word»". Our Lady wanted the feast of the Mother of the Eucharist to be celebrated, until a particular day is established, on the day of the Annunciation because on this day we contemplate and admire the fullness of grace. It is for this fullness of grace that Mary was chosen and prepared to become the Mother of the Eucharist. "So Mary, daughter of Adam, consenting to the divine Word, became the mother of Jesus, and embracing with a full heart, no sin to hold her back, the divine will of salvation, she devoted herself totally as a handmaid of the Lord to the person and work of her Son...". Mary has totally consecrated herself to God. We recall that this was reaffirmed during the feast of the Presentation of Mary at the Temple; this feast celebrates the full, total, intelligent and willing consecration that Mary made of herself to God; consecration that is actually present since Mary’s conception. When God infuses the soul in Mary, she is immediately aware of her qualities and her attributes, so she is intelligent and aware, already knows exactly everything and from the first moment of her life, Mary consecrated to God. The consecration is the first free and intelligent act that Mary did. We, before making such an act we have to grow and make an endless series of other actions; Mary’s first act, instead, as a human being, was to consecrate herself to God, as to place herself in a situation of collaboration with the Son of God and her Son in the work of Redemption. As the Son is totally of God and He Himself is God and belongs to the Father, in the same way Mary is also totally of God and belongs completely to the Father. "In fact, as St. Irenaeus says, she "being obedient, became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race". Hence not a few of the early Fathers, in their preaching, gladly assert with Irenaeus that the knot of Eve“s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience; what the virgin Eve tied with her disbelief, the Virgin Mary untied with her faith...". A comparison that is renewed and repeats again and again: love and selfishness, sin and grace, obedience and disobedience. "...And, once compared with Eve, they call Mary "mother of the living and often claim: "death through Eve, life through Mary". We recall the definition that Jesus gave to God: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God of the living. God is the Father of the living, Mary is the Mother of the living. From the Scripture comes the first statement, God of the living, from tradition comes the second, Mother of the living. So being Mother of the living, like a mother pining and suffering in giving birth to her children, so she too suffered during her earthly life. We add, in the light of private revelations, that we respect, but many others unfortunately still deny, that Mary, by continuing her office as Mother, is continuing her task of suffering. Christ is the head and suffers, Mary is the Mother and suffers. Maria suffered the passion of her son while the son was subjected to passion and subsequently she suffered the stigmata after death and resurrection of her son. This suffering in Mary is also present when she joins the dimension of the mystical body, when from the happiness in Heaven she goes to the Earth unhappiness in order to descend among us. Every appearance performed by Mary in any place, in any corner of the Earth, is always a source of suffering for her. For Our Lady it would be better to stay in Heaven, but she is Mother and, in order to save her children, she comes on Earth even if she has to suffer.

FOURTH DAY

"This union of the Mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to His death; and first of all when Mary, starting in haste to go and visit Elizabeth, is greeted by her as blessed because of her belief in the promise of salvation, while the precursor leaped with joy in his mother’s womb...". The first action of Mary for the others is an experience dictated by love that does not end just in inspiring love in people, but continues in the commitment to bring souls to the highest and all-encompassing love of God. This episode of the visit is a reason for the sanctification of the little one who was still in Elizabeth’s womb; the Lord wanted to put her at the beginning of the Gospel to make us understand a truth that unfortunately today is partly overlooked: man meets God and is sanctified by Him only if he is united to Mary, only if he accepts Mary in his life because this presence renders effective and actual the presence of God, immensely and infinitely more important. Mary is an opportunity, the means and the instrument of which man cannot do without if he really wants to have with God a relationship extremely rich in love and strong. On the other hand it is enough to refer to the saints’ lives to realize that there was no saint who has not deeply loved Mary. Those movements that do not harbor a true and deep love for Mary, despite the excellent organization and many members, cannot lead people to holiness. To do without Mary and wanting to bring the whole matter on Christ only, goes against the will of God. Without Mary there is no holiness. A community that loves Mary is a community that loves Christ; a community that does not love Mary will hardly love Christ. “...at the birth of Our Lord, when the Mother of God joyfully showed the shepherds and Magi her firstborn Son who did not diminish His mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it". It confirms what the Our Lady says about Christ’s virginal birth. She described Christ’s birth as a ray of sunlight passing through a very pure crystal without breaking it. Mary's virginal integrity is made possible because God, and Christ is God, did not affect in any way her physical virginity, but passed through Mary’s womb. Baby Jesus, once out of Mary’s womb, rested in her arms. In our experience something similar happened when the Eucharist came to rest, even if invisibly, in Marisa’s hands. Christ himself, who came to rest in his Mother’s arms, and Marisa’s, rests in our hands when we approach the Eucharist. When receiving the Holy Communion, it is not important the way we take Jesus the Eucharist, but the gesture to receive Jesus the Eucharist in the hand is a gesture that should recall Mary’s act, who received Baby Jesus in her hands. How wonderful this gesture is: hands placed in such a way to form a little throne of love where Jesus can lay. We receive Jesus the Eucharist trying to have in our hearts part of the love that Mary had for her Son when she cuddled Him, guarding and protecting Him from the cold. Jesus was powerless and weak; although He was God, He did not use his divine omnipotence and left His Mother to guard Him. The Eucharist, when it is in our hands, when it is within us, allow us to guard it. It is in the Eucharist that simultaneously we capture the apparent weakness of God and His divine omnipotence. Apparent weakness because by His will He is delivered to us and divine omnipotence because by entering within us He is transforming us from lukewarm to fervent, from weak to strong, from selfish to generous. The Christ who is in our hands, first of all stood in the hands of his Mother. He was born and stood there, in Bethlehem, the city of bread; the Eucharistic bread is Christ, the Mother of the Eucharist is Our Lady.

FIFTH DAY

Let us go on in the reading and assimilation of these great and important teachings of the Church gathered in council and that are not yet familiar and known to the faithful. This lack of knowledge concerning Our Lady originates a sense of detachment, indifference and sometimes hostility. The Council examines the relationship between Mary and the Church. We cannot but think that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church has within itself, in a particular and privileged place, subject only to Christ, Mary. To say Christ is to admit clearly and accurately the presence of his Mother. To assign and pay tribute to Mary the cult, love, and an attitude of filial attachment means first of all to recognize in her what God has done. Men fail to appreciate this masterpiece, and by saying men we mean also the clerics, priests and bishops, being almost ashamed to show love for the one who God made superior even to the angels as she is inferior for grace to Him only; to the one who has enclosed within herself all natural treasures, preternatural and supernatural that the Father could give to one of His creature. “There is but one Mediator as we know from the words of the apostle: "As there is one God, only one is the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ the man, who gave himself for everybody’s redemption”. Every man necessarily implies a mother, that's why where Jesus is, Mary is; where the Eucharist is, the Mother of the Eucharist is present. You cannot think otherwise, it is an inseparable pair. It is not true that giving too much to one neglects the other, for by giving to one, you come to the other; those who want to reach Christ must pass through the path called Mary, it is the safest, it is the one that more guarantees the journey of those who want to reach out to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. “The maternal duty of Mary toward men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power”. These are the words of the Church, this is the teaching of the Church; unfortunately sometimes they deviate from it and it is taught in a different way. But we do not care what men say, even if they are great theologians professing lovers of high Mariology, we are interested in what the Church teaches and this is why the official Church documents are accepted and respected by us, for in them we see the presence, science and omniscience of God. “Every salvific influence of the Blessed Virgin on men does not originate from some inner necessity, but from a purely gratuitous predisposition of God. It flows forth from the overabundant merits of Christ; hence it rests on His mediation and depends and draws all its power entirely from it...” It is the clear will of God that Mary be welcomed by all who are children of the Church; Mary must be treated as Mother of the Church. And it is there, at the foot of the cross that this motherhood, extending to all men and bringing out the greatness of this woman, is officially recognized and endorsed by God. “The blessed Virgin was predestined from eternity, within the plan of the incarnation of the Word, to be the Mother of God, as disposed by the divine Providence, she was on this earth the alma mater of the Redeemer, generously associated to His work to a very unique title, and humble handmaid of the Lord...". It is the only case in which the son precedes in time, and we can say since eternity, the mother; a son who loved with an immense and infinite love the one who would have generated Him over time. This load of infinite love has meant that Mary would be the all holy, the all beautiful, the all immaculate. “...By conceiving, giving birth, feeding and presenting Him to the Father at the Temple, and suffering with Him as He died on the Cross, she cooperated in a very special way in the work of the Redeemer, by her obedience, faith, hope and burning charity, she restored the supernatural life to souls. Wherefore she became for us mother in the order of grace". Referring to one of the most famous expression of Saint Bernard, if we want to get to Christ, we must go through Mary. And not only we get to Christ, but we came to know Him because what Mary is, Christ is. Mary is the one who gave blood and body to the second person of the Holy Trinity and this places her in a position to be a mediator. Christ is the mediator, as God and as man; Mary is a mediator as Mother of God and our Mother. And we, because of our weakness and imperfections, we need to feel the Mother. With the mother we have confidence, in her we trust, with the mother we are not ashamed. When facing God, we must stand in a situation of adoration, of acceptance of his divinity and prostration, but with the Mother everything is easier: to speak, to understand and to make ourselves understood. We have also learned this from Marisa’s experiences: despite having a huge familiarity with Jesus, when she sees Him, she immediately asks: "Our Lady where is she?" Marisa feels this filial relationship that can be fulfilled and satisfied only by a maternal presence. We must be grateful to God who has given us such a great, holy and pure Mother. Sometimes children neglect their mothers and regret them when they are away, or worse, when they are in Heaven, in our Father’s arms. Hopefully we do not behave like those children with respect to Mary. Mary is alive, and then let us try to develop this relationship and to live it, always stronger and more intense, day by day.

SIXTH DAY

"This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect. Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation". Let us pause a moment to meditate and reflect on the theological significance of intercession. Mary’s intercession is so powerful that sometimes it meant that God would change his salvation plans. It is not difficult to make this statement because the Gospel itself gives us confirmation of what has been said; just think at the wedding at Cana, when Our Lady asks her Son to intervene with a miracle, Jesus initially responds: "My hour has not yet come". Thanks to Mary’s intercession, God's interventions, which are manifested by miracles, signs of Christ’s divinity, are hastened and started before the expected time. As at Cana so it happened for the Apostles in the Upper Room. Mary’s powerful prayer hastened the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as also Pope Pius XII states. The Apostles were gathered in prayer that did not reach, however, Mary’s intercession power that she alone could succeed to have with respect to the Father. This intercession that manifested so glaring and strongly has not ceased, but continues today. The coronation of Mary Queen of Heaven and Earth is read in this way: God, by His will, places His omnipotence in Mary’s hands. That's why the saints who have had a special attraction, harmony and union with Our Lady tell us that if we want to surely achieve something from Jesus, we have to go through his Mother. This is intercession. We have to feel encouraged by this theological presentation, which finds its basis in the writing and teaching of the Church, and spur us to ask Mary to intercede with God to accelerate the salvation plan. Mary succeeded at Cana in favor of the couple, in favor of the Apostles in the Upper Room, and today, we hope, for us little apostles. Jesus invited us to turn to Mary: "Pray to Our Lady". Pray to Our Lady for the Son will not say no to Mom. Mary’s intercession is a perennial reality that unfortunately has been forgotten and that we are seeking, by clinging to the word of God and to the teaching of the Church, to get it back alive, effective and active in the Church, for we are in the Church and we are with the Church.

SEVENTH DAY

These days we have been in Our Lady’s company, we met before the Lord at the time of Eucharist. At that time we met also with Mary, Mother of the Eucharist because where there is Jesus the Eucharist, there is also His Mother. In this way we overcome the time and space barriers that characterize human relationships because in the supernatural realm they have no value and cannot keep away those who truly love each other. Mary’s divine motherhood, which is a truth of faith that absolutely must be believed, is the base around which revolve all Marian privileges. The Immaculate Conception is a privilege that God has bestowed on Mary as she was chosen since eternity to be his Mother. This privilege is another truth, as Pius IX says in the bull "Inneffabilis Deus", where the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is established; those who do not believe in this truth are placed automatically outside the Church. Just as some great human masterpieces are sometimes not understood by those who admire them because they are so high that defy human understanding, in the same way, if we stand in front of this masterpiece of God that is Mary, we cannot understand its greatness, because it is immensely beyond our ability to understand. Only God can, before Mary, enjoy this masterpiece because He knows what He has given her; He only, who is omniscient, omnisapient and omnipotent can enjoy this greatness. Mary is understood only by God and is the subject of satisfaction for Him. At the beginning of Holy Scripture, each day of creation ends with the words: "And God saw that it was good". In English, the adjective has a positive, a comparative and a superlative degree; so we can say one thing is good, better or best. If with the creation God said that was a good thing, with Mary we should say, actually we should clearly write in golden letters, that God saw he had created the best reality: we would use the superlative beyond which there is nothing. We stop at the adjective good because our limits do not allow us to reach that total and complete understanding that only God, being infinite, is capable of. How come we had to wait 18 centuries for the Immaculate Conception of Mary to become a truth of faith? There are schools of thought that have opposed this privilege; St. Bonaventure, for example, said that the Virgin was sanctified after conception; this is because men were not able to understand this great reality. And then the time came when men grew up and were ready to "intus legere", that is to understand; In fact, to this jewel God will add a final one, that of Mary Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix. She, who has not experienced any guilt, not even the original sin, not even for a moment, is admitted by God to be with Him Co-Redemptrix and simultaneously carry out the task, which is exclusive to Christ, as Mediatrix. Christ is the Mediator, Mary the Mediatrix. Because of incarnation, the divine maternity, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Lady are possible. To say incarnation means to say Eucharist and to say Eucharist means to say Mother of the Eucharist. As in the Eucharist is contained the whole truth revealed and announced, so in Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, are enclosed all gifts and privileges God has given to his Mother. And here there are these two bright lights illuminating the Church. When men are opposing them, thus preventing the light from reaching the earth, they fall in a state of confusion and shame, but when this does not happen then the light hits the earth illuminating every corner. The Church was impoverished when men placed obstacles to the Eucharistic presence; if they remove them by going to the Eucharist, as it is now starting to happen, then the Church will be again really strong and renewed. We must always keep in mind that in the Eucharist we must remember the one who made possible this perpetuating and infinite gift of God. That's why you see Christ’s blood, on the statue of the Mother of the Eucharist, seeped from the particle left by Our Lady, and in that blood, as Pope John Paul II said, there is the scent and flavor of the Mary’s maternal blood. Christ and Mary form a whole; men have tried to dissolve this unit and every time they have tried to do so, they always stood in opposition to God. It is Mass time, it is Eucharist time. In the Eucharist we meet the Mother of the Eucharist and all our brothers; we meet those who are alive and we meet those who have died because the Eucharist is real presence of God and in God all creatures are present.