(DAILY REFLECTIONS) 8th December, 2023 Solemnity of the immaculate Conception

(DAILY REFLECTIONS)
8th December, 2023
Solemnity of the immaculate Conception
This dogma of immaculate Conception points to the fact that Mary was conceived without original sin. It was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854.
Those days when we were young at home, whenever we could do something wrong at home when our parents were not around, at their coming back, just hearing their voices; we could hide away.
Exactly this is what our fore parents Adam and Eve did as we have read in today’s first reading. After eating the forbidden fruit, they tried to hide from God as they heard Him coming. However, trying to hide from God is the most stupid thing a man can ever do. God sees everywhere, He is present everywhere!!!”Where can I go to escape

from you? Where can I get away from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; If I lay down in the world of the dead, you are there… I could ask darkness to hide me or light around me to turn into night, but even darkness for you is as bright as day (Psalm 139:7-12).
Sin strips us naked! After Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, they realized that they were naked. It is nolonger you but they say pointing at you, ”there goes a thief, a prostitute!”.
And no one wants to be responsible for a guilt even if his or her own hands that have committed it. A siner points to another. Adam was saying “the woman whom you gave to be with me, gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.” The woman also said ”the snake beguiled me and I ate.” (Gen.3:12-13).Today people even hide evidence, they can pay courts to hide

files if they learn that they can’t escape a jail. Indeed they can do anything but we should remember that God is incorruptible.
Always the fruit of sin is punishment and death. God had to sentence His three criminals and in this He showed Himself as an eternal judge. And that “He will pay everyone according to His or her deeds”(Roman 2:6).
One of the punishments that were given to the serpent was “I will put enemity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel”(Gen.3:15). Satan hates us all.

Because of God’s unfailing love, when we are bruised by the bites of sin, He is ever the first to forge for us a way back. It was God who looked for Adam and Eve when

they sinned. When we were taken astray by the sin of the first Eve, God gets a dangerous substitute: Mary, the second Eve. In the gospel today, the angel Gabriel greets Mary thus: Hail Mary ful of Grace, the Lord is with you…(Luke1:28).The angel bring to this virgin girl glad tidings of our redemption. Just like all of us get confused by this mystery of incarnation, Mary too responds by a question, “How will it be since I don’t know any man”. This is the thing which confuses even science! The angel tries to explain to Mary how it would happen. Now Mary yields everything to faith and she Said in reply “Behold, I am the hand of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word”(Luke1:38). With this acceptance, Mary made the most fundamental decisions in human history. She bore for us a redeemer by the power of the Holy spirit.

Hail Mary, pray for us.
By Rev. Fr. Ssemakula Stephen