Today we honor Mary with a Solemnity, recalling the title she has carried as the Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception. Under the title of the Immaculate Conception is placed the USA. So, let us pray for our country and for ourselves asking for the solicitude of the Divine Maternity. As always, we need to remember that anything we say about Mary needs to be true for her Son –it all has to cohere. Saint Anselm wrote, “Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.”
Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem writes:
“Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God that can never be lost. You have won from God a most glorious favor, a grace long desired, a grace of great splendor, a saving grace, an unfailing grace, a grace that will last forever. Many before you have been holy, but no one has been as favored as you, no one as blessed as you, no one as perfectly sanctified as you, no one as highly praised as you. No one else has like you been possessed from the first by purifying grace, no one else has been enlightened like you, or exalted like you, for no one has approached so close to God as you, or been enriched with such divine gifts, or endowed with such heavenly grace.”
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!