'So was the Word made incarnation / In Mary’s womb, a son.' The Immaculate Conception

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, observed on 8 December, is a holyday of obligation in many countries, eg, Ireland, the Philippines. 

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 1:26-38 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)  

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 

Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

The Annunciation

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

This is but one of many paintings of the Annunciation by El Greco.

The Incarnation

by St John of the Cross

Translation from the Spanish original by Roy Campbell

Then He summoned an archangel,
Saint Gabriel: and when he came,
Sent him forth to find a maiden,
Mary was her name.

Only through her consenting love
Could the mystery be preferred
That the Trinity in human
Flesh might clothe the Word.

Though the three Persons worked the wonder
It only happened in the One.
So was the Word made incarnation
In Mary’s womb, a son.

So He who only had a Father
Now had a Mother undefiled,
Though not as ordinary maids
Had she conceived the Child.

By Mary, and with her own flesh
He was clothed in His own frame:
Both Son of God and Son of Man
Together had one name.

This poem is in The Divine Office (Breviary) approved by the hierarchies of Australia, England and Wales, Ireland. I found it online here.

Ave Maria

Setting by Franz Biebl, Sung by Voces8

Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu sancto.
(The angel of God declared unto Mary and she conceived of the Holy Spirit.)

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

(Hail Mary, Full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.)

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

(Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, Holy Mary,

pray for us now and in the hour of our death. Amen.)

'So was the Word made incarnation / In Mary’s womb, a son.' Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, observed on 8 December, is a holyday of obligation in many countries, eg, Ireland, the Philippines. This year it falls on the Second Sunday of Advent, which takes precedence over it. So the Solemnity is transferred to Monday 9 December. However, the obligation to attend Mass does not carry over.

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Gospel Luke 1:26-38 (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)  

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’ But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ 

Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

The Annunciation

El Greco [Web Gallery of Art]

This is but one of many paintings of the Annunciation by El Greco.

The Incarnation

by St John of the Cross

Translation by Roy Campbell

Then He summoned an archangel,
Saint Gabriel: and when he came,
Sent him forth to find a maiden,
Mary was her name.

Only through her consenting love
Could the mystery be preferred
That the Trinity in human
Flesh might clothe the Word.

Though the three Persons worked the wonder
It only happened in the One.
So was the Word made incarnation
In Mary’s womb, a son.

So He who only had a Father
Now had a Mother undefiled,
Though not as ordinary maids
Had she conceived the Child.

By Mary, and with her own flesh
He was clothed in His own frame:
Both Son of God and Son of Man
Together had one name.

This poem is in The Divine Office (Breviary) approved by the hierarchies of Australia, England and Wales, Ireland. I found it online here.

Ave Maria

Setting by Franz Biebl, Sung by Voces8

Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et concepit de Spiritu sancto.
(The angel of God declared unto Mary and she conceived of the Holy Spirit.)

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

(Hail Mary, Full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.)

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

(Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, Holy Mary,

pray for us now and in the hour of our death. Amen.)

The Immaculate Conception and the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception

El Greco, 1608-13, Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo, Spain [Web Gallery of Art]

Gospel Luke 1:26-38 (New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition) 

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

The Annunciation

El Greco, 1596-1600, Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]

Logo, Jubilee of Mercy

Misericordiae Vultus

BULL OF INDICTION
OF THE EXTRAORDINARY
JUBILEE OF MERCY

FRANCIS
BISHOP OF ROME
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
TO ALL WHO READ THIS LETTER
GRACE, MERCY, AND PEACE

Young Jew as Christ 

Rembrandt, c.1648, Staatliche Museen, Berlin [Web Gallery of Art]

Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, 'rich in mercy' (Eph 2:4), after having revealed his name to Moses as 'a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness' (Ex34:6), has never ceased to show, in various ways throughout history, his divine nature. In the 'fullness of time' (Gal 4:4), when everything had been arranged according to his plan of salvation, he sent his only Son into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal his love for us in a definitive way. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God.

The above are the opening words of Misericordiae Vultus, the proclamation by Pope Francis of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy that starts tomorrow, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, when the Pope opens the Holy Door at St Peter's Basilica in Rome. The Jubilee Year will end on the Solemnity of Christ the King, 20 November 2016. The Vatican has a website dedicated to the Jubilee Year.

In No 24 of Misericordiae Vultus Pope Francis writes:

My thoughts now turn to the Mother of Mercy. May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness. No one has penetrated the profound mystery of the incarnation like Mary. Her entire life was patterned after the presence of mercy made flesh. The Mother of the Crucified and Risen One has entered the sanctuary of divine mercy because she participated intimately in the mystery of His love.

Chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, Mary, from the outset, was prepared by the love of God to be the Ark of the Covenant between God and man. She treasured divine mercy in her heart in perfect harmony with her Son Jesus. Her hymn of praise, sung at the threshold of the home of Elizabeth, was dedicated to the mercy of God which extends from 'generation to generation' (Lk 1:50). We too were included in those prophetic words of the Virgin Mary. This will be a source of comfort and strength to us as we cross the threshold of the Holy Year to experience the fruits of divine mercy.

At the foot of the Cross, Mary, together with John, the disciple of love, witnessed the words of forgiveness spoken by Jesus. This supreme expression of mercy towards those who crucified him show us the point to which the mercy of God can reach. Mary attests that the mercy of the Son of God knows no bounds and extends to everyone, without exception. Let us address her in the words of the Salve Regina, a prayer ever ancient and ever new, so that she may never tire of turning her merciful eyes upon us, and make us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son Jesus.

Let us address her in the words of the Salve Regina, a prayer ever ancient and ever new (Misericordiae Vultus).

The Crucifixion

El Greco, 1596-1600, Museo del Prado, Madrid [Web Gallery of Art]

At the foot of the Cross, Mary, together with John, the disciple of love, witnessed the words of forgiveness spoken by Jesus (Misericordiae Vultus).

The Immaculate Conception: 'Our tainted nature's solitary boast'.

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, El Graco, 1608-13 [Web Gallery of Art]

I have often heard the quotation about our Blessed Mother from English poet William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), Our tainted nature's solitary boast. But I never read the poem from which it is taken until now.

The Virgin

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost

With the least shade of thought to sin allied.

Woman! above all women glorified,

Our tainted nature's solitary boast;

Purer than foam on central ocean tost;

Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn

With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon

Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;

Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,

Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,

As to a visible Power, in which did blend

All that was mixed and reconciled in thee

Of mother's love with maiden purity,

Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

Wordworth's grave, Grasmere, Cumbria, England [Wikipedia]

William Wordsworth wasn't a Catholic but he understood the meaning of Mary's Immaculate Conception, something the Church believed in for many centuries and that was declared a dogma of the church by Pope Pius IX, 'Pio Nono', in 1854, four years after the death of Wordsworth and four years before Mary appeared to St Bernadette in Lourdes and revealed to her in her local French patois that she was the Immaculate Conception.

In 2001 I did mission appeals in for the Columbans in the Diocese of Lancaster, which includes the beautiful Lake District of England. In August that year I visited the grave of William Wordsworth in the cemetery attached to the Anglican church in Grasmere. I attended Sunday Evensong (Vespers) in the church and was the only person there apart from the Anglican priest and a liturgical assistant. At one level it was quite sad. But Jesus did assure us that when two or three of us gather in his name he is there among us. However, the church was full later in the evening for a lecture on the life and work of Wordsworth.

The Lourdes Hymn, sung in Lourdes

The hymn is being sung in different languages, with the words Ave, Maria, 'Hail, Mary', in Latin. The video is by John O'Sullivan.

Today's solemnity reminds us of the mission that God the Father gave to Mary: to bring her Son, God who became Man, to us and to bring us to her Son, God who became Man.

'I am the Immaculate Conception'

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, El Greco, painted 1608-13

Introit

Gaudens gaudébo in Dómino,

et exsultábit ánima mea in Deo meo;

quia índuit me vestiméntis salútis,

et induménto iustítiæ circúmdedit me,

quasi sponsam ornátam monílibus suis.

Entrance Antiphon

I rejoice heartily in the Lord, 

in my God is the joy of my soul; 

for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation,

and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, 

like a bride adorned wit her jewels.

Collect

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin

prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son,

Grant, we pray,

that, as you preserved her from every stain

by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw,

so, through her intercession,

we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

I never knew until now that the melody of the Lourdes Hymn is a traditional Pyreneean one.

Lourdes is at the foot of the Pyrenees and on my visits to the shrine there was always an 

afternoon trip to one of the towns in the mountains.

There are many different sets of lyrics to the melody. I had never heard these before. They

are from England and include a reference to that country as 'The Dowry of Mary'. The English

are second to none - except, perhaps, to their neighbours the Welsh - when it comes to 

hymn-singing.

Virgin of Advent, for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Virgin of Immaculate Conception and St John, El Greco, painted c.1585

VIRGEN DEL ADVIENTO

Virgen del Adviento,

esperanza nuestra,

de Jesús, la aurora,

del Cielo, la puerta.

Madre de los hombres,

de la mar, estrella,

llévanos a Cristo,

danos sus promesas.

Virgen del Adviento,

esperanza nuestra,

de Jesús, la aurora,

del Cielo, la puerta.

Eres Virgen Madre,

la de gracia llena,

del Señor, la esclava,

del mundo, la Reina.

Virgen del Adviento,

esperanza nuestra,

de Jesús, la aurora,

del Cielo, la puerta.

Alza nuestros ojos

hacia tu belleza,

guía nuestros pasos

a la vida eterna.

Virgen del Adviento,

esperanza nuestra,

de Jesús, la aurora,

del Cielo, la puerta

While researching for Sunday Reflections I came across this Advent hymn by Antonio Alcalde. I know nothing about him nor where this was recorded. I suspect it was in one of the Spanish-speaking Latin American country  rather than in Spain. The music is by Fr Jose Cristo Rey Garcia Paredes CMF.

Here is my rough, non-poetic translation of the lyrics:

Virgin of Advent, / our hope, / Crown of Jesus, / Gate of heaven.

Mother of mankind, / Star of the sea, / lead us to Christ, / give us what he has promised.

Virgin of Advent, / our hope, / Crown of Jesus, / Gate of heaven.

You are the Virgin Mother, / full of grace, / handmaid of the Lord, / Queen of the world.

Virgin of Advent, / our hope, / Crown of Jesus, / Gate of heaven.

Raise our eyes / to your beauty / guide our steps / to eternal life.