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| (Immaculate Conception- Peter Paul Rubens, 1628) |
There are very few saints we celebrate in December, but those we do celebrate seem to be connected to light.
Foremost in our minds and hearts in Advent, as we prepare for the coming of her Son, is the Mother of our Savior. As Pope Benedict once wrote: “For Mary, as for Abraham, faith is trust in, and obedience to, God, even when He leads her through darkness. It is a letting go, a releasing, a handing over of oneself to the truth, to God. Faith, in the luminous darkness of God’s inscrutable ways, is thus a conformation to Him.”
Two Marian feasts fall during Advent. The first of which is:OUR LADY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, patroness of the USA
According to St. (Pope) Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus, “The Church asks Mary’s intercession for those who have closed their eyes to the light of this world and appeared before Christ, the eternal Light”. Mary, far from detracting from the light of Christ, actually acts as a mirror shining in the darkest times to point us toward the source of true Light-God.
Venerable Fulton Sheen spoke of Mary as the reflection of the light of Jesus.
“God who made the sun, also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. All its light is reflected from the sun. The Blessed Mother reflects her Divine Son; without Him, she is nothing. with Him, she is the Mother of men”. (The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God)