Mary TV Daily Reflection 12/17/2013

    
  
 
I am the Immaculate Conception
(c) Mary TV 2013


J.M.J.
December 17, 2013

Dear Family of Mary!

I am going to give you a Christmas present, early!!  Here is the transcript of Fr. Maximilian Dalvai's homily on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Medjugorje! It is long, but you have to read it all at once!! 

Fr. Maximilian Dalvai

December 9, 2013 (Immaculate Conception)

What a great feast day we celebrate today! I would really so much like to be able to transmit this, but my English is poor, and for a long time I haven't celebrated English Mass. It is my first time in a long time, but I will try my best. Let us ask the Holy Spirit that He will help us to enter into the beautiful grace of today. Because each time we celebrate the Eucharist it is a most marvelous grace. That is obvious. But each Eucharist has always a special grace. The gifts of God never repeat. He is always new.

And we should ask Mary to help us, because this particular feast is today very "actual" (Do you say that in English?). There is an actuality of the feast of today. For in the first reading from Genesis, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her offspring and your offspring." Think of this God given enmity. The God who is love, who wants everything to unite in his Love, He created an enmity. And it is important to understand where we are. We are with the Woman. To be with the Woman is important.

The past 200 years we have seen more clearly than ever this enmity. Mary from the beginning started her plan of battle. I say it like this because Maximilian Kolbe used this language. Do you know Maximilian Kolbe? Yes, he used this kind of language. He spoke of battle. So nearly 200 years ago, she started to prepare her weapons. I will use this language, as it is my joy! I am called Maximilian. So in 1830 she made the weapon. But it is not a weapon of the world. It is a sign. It's a blessing, a grace, a little medal. The Miraculous Medal, it is called. If you want to study it, Ratisbonne it was a Jew, an antichristian, who converted to Catholicism and became a priest because of this medal. If you want to study this on the internet, it is easy.

What this medal did and does! So Mary created this weapon, this medal in 1830 and what is this medal? "Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." O Mary, conceived without sin... that was 1830! There was no dogma made of the Immaculate Conception. That was nearly 30 years after in 1854. And when the Pope wanted to make this dogma, he was opposed by quite a few bishops, especially in the north. But he felt it was the Holy Spirit who told him to do it, to go along.  And then 4 years after as you know well, in 1858, Mary confirmed it at Lourdes. And as the Pope proclaimed the words (This is a historical fact we can prove, and that is important, and we need also this.) it was a very cloudy day in Rome as the Pope solemnly proclaimed this doctrine of our faith, revealed by God for us. It was a very cloudy day in Rome, worse than today for us, but at the moment he said the words, a ray of light flashed through the clouds and enlightened the face of the Holy Father. This was written in the newspapers of that day at that time because it was so obvious. Everything was cloudy and, boom, he was enlightened. Today we would use special lights, special effects, to do this, but in 1854 there was no such special effects. You could say that the first special effects were made by the Lord himself!

Then in Fatima she confirmed, and she said, "There will be times of trouble, but in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph." And so she came here in Medjugorje where she said, 1991, the 25th of August, "I will complete here what I started in Fatima." So there is an evolution, there is a battle going on between good and evil, and Mary has a special place. But we all have a special place because she said, "You don't realize, you cannot know how important is your role in the great plan of salvation."

Now certain theologians who say that it is Christ who crushes the head of the devil and his seed. Others say no it is Mary, no it is Christ, no Mary...You know about this?? The theological dispute. But I think we have to go beyond it. We have to open to the Holy Spirit, because it is obvious it is Christ, but it is also obvious that He does it through the heel of His mother. Because God (In the Magnificat Mary says it, and the whole Bible is full of it) humbles the proud. Now the devil who sinned through pride, would not be humbled if he was crushed by Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Eternal Word. That would be no humiliation at all. But to be crushed through the seed of a humble woman, that is most terrible for him. Do you understand, do I make myself clear??

But now God through His mother wants to go even further. He wants to do it through us. This is something great. This is something marvelous, and so we are part of the mystery. We are the Body of Christ today here in this world. And today Mary says, "Please help me." It is a collaboration we have to make. It is not this distance, there is God and here we are, and we just have to worship Him and then we go home. No, we are the Body of Christ. You are the light of the world, He says. And so there is collaboration. We have to enter into this grace. Because it is a grace even to us, and it is a special grace. This is the time of grace, as Mary says here.

So, Mary has a special role, she is the new Eve, as some Church Fathers say. And today we thank Mary, not just because of the gift she received, because she received it as one of us, she received that special gift. But she was faithful to that gift. That is important. For that we thank Mary. For the gift she received we thank God, it is so wonderful. But thank you, Mary, because you remained faithful to that gift. Now we ask her to help us who must remain faithful to the gift we receive every day in this time of grace.

Mary said, and this is very important, in Lourdes as you already know, not "I was immaculately conceived..." No, she said, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Maximilian Kolbe would say it, to make a comparison, that you can say that there is ivory white, there is snow white, and there is "whiteness". She said, "I am whiteness. I am the Immaculate Conception." So Maximilian Kolbe says to us that she is like the blueprint for a new humanity. And therefore this is so important for today, God wants to make in these times when we see so much the clash between light and darkness, a new springtime. Mary spoke about the springtime here. He wants to make something new with humanity. His mercy is so great that we cannot imagine it at all. And so He wants to use Mary as a mold, as always the words of Maximilian Kolbe, a mold where we can form ourselves. The more Mary lives in us, the more Christ can live in us.

Some people are afraid, because they know from human experience, that it is very deep in us, spiritually, psychologically, that whenever we enter into relation with a person, we enter also into relationship with his sinfulness, with that person's egoism, through which he is trying to get something out of us. That is human. And so we get afraid, and we say to ourselves, just God alone. We don't need to be afraid of that, of that specific fear, with Mary. Because she wants nothing for herself. That is the Immaculate Conception. She is so pure, she takes nothing for herself. She is just like an airplane to God. If you are on an island, you want to go to another island or to the continent, you can swim by yourself or you can take an airplane. Mary is the shortest route, in that sense, the airplane. The more we are with her the more we are with God, with Christ.

But she, living in us, forms in us her Son. As He was formed 2000 years ago in her womb, so today again. We don't need to be afraid. This fear is because we still have a sense of sinfulness. In faith we could say that we don't believe that humanity can be truly pure, truly holy, I speak of pureness in its spiritual sense, we might not believe that. And so we have this unconscious fear. So, just God alone, just Christ. We don't understand that God wants us all to be holy and blameless, immaculate...He wants to make us all like that. So we have to go to "The Immaculate Conception", to "The Whiteness"...to make the comparison of Maximilian Kolbe. She is the blueprint of a healed humanity.

What can we do, in conclusion? Let's listen to her. Let's be docile to her. Let's ask her without fear to enter into our life. God is not just an island alone. God is communion, God is family. And so we can enter into the Communion of Saints. Mary has said here, "Use the saints as a model." It is much more beautiful and enriching this way of living Christianity. That is the Communion of Saints amongst us. So there is a fullness.

Now let's listen to what she says to us today. In one of her last messages she talks about union with the Father and union with the Son. She wants to bring us to union with the Father and union with the Son. I think it is a lack of humility to think I can do that all by myself. I think it is more beautiful to say to God, "If you wanted to use Mary to come to the world, I want to use Mary to come to You." We can use her, we can use our Mother. Children use their mother. They can give nothing. They need everything from her. They give her just a smile. They say thank you. So we can use her. She said, "I am here for you. Use me. I want nothing for myself, but everything for your salvation." And we have to understand that in this battle, what is at stake in the end is our soul. Our souls, the souls of humanity.

And so she says, and I will conclude with this, "Give yourself to me. Consecrate yourself to me. Consecrate yourself to my Immaculate Heart." She said that already in Fatima. Now here she repeats it. And she said, "Renew your consecration. Give yourselves to me." Let's do that without fear.

I don't know if I was able to explain a little bit, to do this without fear because she is Immaculate. Think today what it means to be Immaculate. Ask that this grace of the Immaculate Conception can enter into us so that we can from now and ever more stand in the presence of God, holy and without blame, immaculate.

In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

Cathy Nolan

(c)Mary TV 2013

Once again:

Christmas Novena of St. James Parish, Medjugorje!

St. James Parish will climb Apparition Hill, praying the Rosary, for nine days before Christmas. 

The novena began on December 15, and will end on December 23.

Mary TV will stream the novena - live - starting Monday, December 16,

 2:00 pm Medjugorje time (8:00 am EST).

Join the parish in this wonderful novena in preparation for the coming of Baby Jesus at Christmas!

 "Medjugorje is the spiritual center of the world!"   

Blessed John Paul II  -

Be connected! 

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