Yesterday, December 8th was the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Many times, this day is thought to be the celebration of the conception of Jesus, but that is another day and another feast (The Annunciation - March 25th). On December 8th, the Church celebrates Mary's conception which we call Immaculate because we believe, as the Church teaches, that Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, preserved from any stain of original sin by the grace of God (full text of the dogmatic proclamation can be found here: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9ineff.htm). The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is particularly special to us here at the North American College as it is our Patronal Feast. This means a huge celebration with many distinguished guests, friends, and benefactors As with many of the major events here at the College this day and celebration meant a bit of work from us seminarians, including myself. Now, this next part will be hard for you to fathom, but I, a seminarian, actually had the temptation to be bitter about this idea of having to work on a day so special to the College and to me personally. I know, I have a hard time believing it myself, that a seminarian would complain, but it's true. I was having these bizarre thoughts as I was walking around the track praying a rosary before Mass. As I got to one end of the track I was able to see the front gate of the College where several seminarians were working welcoming our guests and making sure that they knew where to go. As I watched this I saw a group of sisters who help out here at the College and who I have had the pleasure of working with at the U.S. Visitor's Office. Watching them walk in and head to the chapel gave God the opportunity to knock some sense into me. At that moment, I was filled with joy seeing them come from their daily tasks to celebrate our patronal feast with us. They came here to share in our joy and to join us in thanking God for the gift of our Most Holy and Immaculate Mother and for the tremendous gift of this College. Many of the people who were present do a great deal for the College and it was at that moment that I stopped looking at my duties for the day as a burden and started seeing them as a true gift. I was able to serve the many people who make my time here possible and most enjoyable. I was immediately reminded of Jesus saying that he came to serve, NOT to be served. If I am preparing for the priesthood, preparing to act in persona Christi, to be another Christ, then I too should always be ready to serve and not to be served. What a great gift from our Lord for this realization. Now do you see why I call God sneaky? I do so many things here, going to class, formation meetings, preaching practice, St. Peter's Tours, studying and all of the rest and many times I can lose sight of the end goal. Many times I feel like I am still so far from the goal, which in many ways I am and I still have lots of room to grow. However, it took this moment of pouting and God making me realize how selfish I was being to see that He is forming me to be a priest right under my nose. Despite my best efforts to be a completely unworthy person to serve as God's priest, he still wants to use my imperfections and brokenness to spread His good news to the ends of the earth.
The second point of reflection from yesterday is about the wisdom of God. There have been a handful of times when I have been completely amazed during the liturgy (not that I don't enjoy them all the time!). The times that I can remember being in awe and truly overwhelmed during the liturgy are for the Dedication of the Abbey Church at St. Ben's my first year of seminary, for the final Mass for my pastor before he moved to a new parish two summers ago and the third was yesterday on this feast of Our Lady. Coming off of the realization of God's love for me before Mass and His continued guidance (even when I fail to realize it) during my priestly formation I had a great experience at Mass. I was particularly impressed by the wisdom of the different degrees of celebrations that we have in the Church. While we believe that every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a holy occasion, there are varying degrees of solemnity. The Church does this to emphasize the critical events that have happened throughout salvation history. Christmas, Easter, Corpus Christi and other major celebrations are Solemnities and are treated differently. For instance, yesterday at the College, there were more candles lit than for a regular daily Mass, we had flowers in the sanctuary, there were Cardinals, Bishops and countless priests present for Mass, the music was more involved (absolutely beautiful!), there was incense...anyway I think you get the picture. We celebrate big events with more "flair" than smaller events. Think about it in your own life, the same rules apply. You probably do things differently for your birthday than you do for most other days of the year. Even within the realm of birthdays, some birthdays are cause for more celebration than others. For instance, 16 (drivers license), 18 (voting!), 21 (drinking responsibly), 25 (finally getting to drive that rental car!), 40 (over the hill), usually call for bigger celebrations than say 27 (come on April). It is not trivial that we do this. We celebrate big events with more emphasis because the occasions deserve it and so do we. Back to the liturgy. Seeing the extra effort put into the liturgy on these occasions helps us to realize that the day is special and that we should treat it as such. We should spend time on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception in prayer thanking God for the gift of our Most Holy and Immaculate Mother who gave birth to our Savior. We should spend time in prayer on Christmas (and before during Advent) reflecting on the impact that God being born as a man like ourselves has on our lives and on our world. All of these special efforts we make are the Church's way of helping to remind us of the greatness of these feasts. Pretty amazing if you think about it, which I hope you will!
I hope that I have disarmed any questions that may have come up after reading the title and I hope that my reflections help you to love our God, who loves us more than we could ever imagine, a little more! I pray that your Advent is filled with anticipation for the celebration of Christ's coming into our world and with time spent with family and friends. Please as always pray for me and know of my prayers for you.
In Christ,
Patrick
