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The Light of the World
it recognizes in the immaculate Virgin a powerful intermediary who pleads the cause of her
impure and sinful children before the most pure God. The moment our prayers reach God,
she joins to them her intercession. Thus our prayers reach the ears of God, not from the lips of
unworthy sinners, but from the lips of our pure and stainless mother. Thus the liturgy lives in the
conviction that on the feast of the Immaculate Conception this wonder shall be accomplished,
that we sinners, too, “may be pure in heart through her intercession and may come” to God pure
and unsullied (Collect). It believes, too, that “through her intercession we may be freed from all
sins” (Secreta) and that “the sacrament which we have received [will] repair in us the wounds
of that sin from which Thou didst in a singular manner preserve the Immaculate Conception
of Blessed Mary” (Postcommunion).
In virtue of this feast, the Church and every soul which by degrees clothes itself in
the resplendent garment of that purity, will reflect the beauty and splendor which is so
remarkable in the Immaculate Conception. The wounds made by Original Sin shall be
healed; the concupiscence of the eyes, the concupiscence of the flesh, and the pride of
life, will be destroyed in us on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thus the Church
believes and prays. Our life, too, our prayers, and our works should be based on this
conviction.
The Church must be pure. It is the virgin bride of Christ. Her garment is purity and sanctity.
She is to be pure, not only as an ideal and in her glorified members in heaven, but also as an
organism on earth and in all her members, particularly in consecrated souls. She must also be
pure in me, and that is why she prays so persistently for this holy virtue.
Purity is the ideal of the Church. We must make our ideals and our life conform to those of
the Church, particularly now as Christmas approaches. Christ will come to pure, virgin souls,
and they will be a delightful Bethlehem for Him.
Prayer
May the sacraments which we have received, O Lord our God, repair in us the wounds of that
sin from which Thou didst in a singular manner preserve the Immaculate Conception of Blessed
Mary. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (Postcommunion.)
Octave of the Immaculate Conception
“My soul doth magnify the Lord. . . . Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me,
and holy is His name” (Lk 1:46, 49). “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be
joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, and with the robe of
justice He hath covered me, as a bride adorned with her jewels” (Introit).
Mary’s first prerogative is declared to us by the liturgy in the words of St. Epiphanius:
With the exception of God alone, Mary stands above all others; she is more grand by
nature than the cherubim and seraphim themselves and all the angelic army; no heavenly
or earthly tongue is in the least able to praise her, not even the tongue of angels. O Blessed
Virgin, pure dove and heavenly spouse; Mary, heaven, temple, and throne of the Divinity,
who hast Christ, the Sun radiant in heaven and on earth! . . . The Virgin is an immaculate lily,
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