Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Preparation for the Coming of Jesus – Advent 2025

Summary

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Long before the angel’s visit to Nazareth, God was already preparing the way for the coming of His Son. In this talk, Michael Gormley reflects on the mystery of Mary’s Immaculate Conception—how, from the first moment of her existence, she was filled with grace to become the perfect dwelling place for Christ and what this gift means for you this Advent season.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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“This important Marian feast occurs during Advent, a season of watchful and prayerful preparation for Christmas. She who knew better than anyone how to wait attentively for the Lord guides us and shows us how to make more vital and active our journey to the Holy Night of Bethlehem.”

Pope St. John Paul II

1. What is your relationship like to Mary? Do you have trouble relating to her, or do you feel comfortable approaching her as a Mother? What aspect of Mary’s example feels most inviting to you—and which feels most challenging?

2. Mary was prepared by grace to say yes to God’s plan. How is God preparing your heart to say yes to Him right now? How can you imitate Mary in her “yes”?

3. Why is Mary’s Immaculate Conception important for you? What does this grace mean for your life?

4. What can Mary teach you this Advent? How can you grow closer to her so that she may bring you closer to her Son?

Text:  Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Preparation for the Coming of Jesus

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Hi and welcome. My name is Mike Gormley, and we’re continuing this walk with the Pray More Advent Retreat. I hope this has been a powerful spiritual experience for you. I love these type of online reflections. I have benefited so much from them. So I hope we can keep walking the great mystery that the Lord is revealing to us.

The Immaculate Conception

Speaking of great mystery, today we are going to talk about the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary. Now, first and foremost, let’s get right out there and say it. The immaculate conception is not about the miraculous virginal conception of Jesus and his virgin birth. That is the number one thing that people confuse all the time. The immaculate conception is a reference to the blessed Virgin Mary. The word immaculate means spotless, blemish less, okay? So Mary and her parents, she had two parents, and Anne and Joachim, they committed the natural act that married couples do that generates a new life. And in that generation of new life, from the first moment of conception, God willed that Mary be given all the graces that she needs, including the beautiful gift of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence. And He preserved her in these graces.

She was full of grace, as the Archangel Gabriel said, from the first moment of her conception all the way to her death, her dormition, her ascension into heaven. And we believe that Mary not only did not have original sin, because if you could make your own mom, you could free her from original sin, wouldn’t you do that? I would. Not only did Mary not have original sin, just like Eve was created without original sin, but Mary also never acquiesced with her will to commit an actual sin.

I remember there was a priest giving a homily one time. He was talking about the Holy Family on the feast day of the Holy Family. And he was trying to be, this is me being generous, he was trying to like humanize the story of Mary, and Joseph, and Jesus, and he said, “Oh, these aren’t like superheroes or something. Like Mary, you know, she wasn’t perfect.” I remember being like, “What does that mean? What does that mean she wasn’t perfect?” Can you imagine being Joseph in that scenario? You’re like, “Oh, He’s the son of God. She’s sinless. I’m me.” You know, I just think of like every time he hit his thumb with a hammer, he was like, “Ugh.” And he’d look over at Mary and they’d be like, “Ugh,” you know, “Ugh. You’re the one that has original sin.” Like, I don’t know, but that’s stupid.

Mary And Eve

But when we think about these things about Our Lady that she never committed actual sin, what does that mean? Well, that means that she never cooperated with the devil. She never cooperated with Satan. She was at enmity with the serpent. In Genesis chapter three when God cursed the serpent, what did He say?

He said, “The woman will be at enmity with the serpent.” Eve was not at enmity. If you take the words of wisdom, it says, “For God does not create death, nor does God delight in the destruction of the living. But we ourselves created it. We pined for it. We made a covenant with it, with death.” That’s what the book of wisdom says. Yikes. So Eve was in union, in league with, under the sway of the Devil. Eve, the woman Eve, failed in her task of being the great lady of creation. She failed miserably. But if you think about her, I mean, there’s Adam, there’s Eve, there’s this angel, sadly a fallen angel, in the garden, right? And what happens? The angel comes to the woman, and there the angel says to the woman, right, a lie.

So now we have the new Eve. She’s also virginal. She’s also pure. She’s also not in the state of original sin. And this second Eve, when the angel comes, brings glad tidings, in fact bears her name, her title, full of grace, “Hail, full of grace. The Lord is with you.” This is amazing. Scripture says that she is blessed among all women. All generations will call her blessed. Do you? Heck yeah, I hope you do. It’s pretty sweet. Love Our lady, right? But when you look at her from this perspective of the new Eve, when sin entered the world, who did it come to first? It came to the woman first, but who was corrupted by the temptation of the serpent? The man and the woman both. So who needs to be involved in our redemption? The man and the woman both.

Now the uniqueness of Mary is that Mary is not the spouse of Jesus like Eve was the spouse of Adam, okay? The thing that intervened is this fascinating history of the house of David. You see, if you’re a polygamous king, if you have a bunch of wives, which wife is the queen? You ever think about that? I ask this question all the time, which wife is the queen? So people say the first woman you married, the one you love the most, the last woman that you married, the youngest, the oldest, the prettiest. That was my favorite one. It’s the prettiest. If she’s a 10, she’s the queen.

Okay, well, whatever. The reality is in those times they married often because they’re solidifying political alliances. And it’s a way of saying, “Now your bloodline and my family’s bloodline are united,” right? “You will have children that represents this covenant that we make with each other.” So that’s why kings had many wives. That’s why God commanded them not to have many wives because they’re going to make deals with the pagan kings. And their pagan daughters are going to come with their pagan idols and they’re going to tempt the king’s heart, which they did to King Solomon, to idol worship. The guy that built a temple for Yahweh by the end of his life was worshiping pagan idols with his wives. Very sad. But in an age of polygamy and an age of bloodlines that matter, it was the mother who was the queen.

Gebirah

 They called her the “gebirah” in Hebrew, the great lady. And the gebirah, the queen mother, the great lady, it was her task to sit at the right hand of her husband and to intercede on behalf of the people to her husband. That was her role, her task. We see this in 1 Kings chapter two, where Solomon has his throne, and his mother comes in and he pays her homage, and then he has a throne built for her next to him. And the crazy thing about understanding Our Lady in these roles is why do people want to attack Mary? Why do we want to attack our mother? Why do we want to go after the one person that when you look at with scripture, never hesitates, never wavers, never shows her deeply sitting or betraying like Tamar of Old, or Bathsheba or, you know, all the four women mentioned in Jesus’s genealogy. She was pure from the beginning.

The Bible has nothing but good things to say about Our Lady, and yet some people want to malign her by the worst they can really say is, “Oh, you Catholics make stuff up,” and, “She was just a normal Jewish girl.” The normal Jewish girl does not have an angel greet her, “Hail, full of grace.” A normal Jewish girl is not selected from before the foundations of the earth were laid to be the one who would be the mother of the Savior. In Galatians 4:4 it says, “In the fullness of time, born of a woman born under the law.” Born of a woman.

Just that simple phrase means in the fullness of time, when the time had come, when God’s plan was now being fulfilled this woman was predestined to be the mother of the redeemer. God asked her. God asked her. He sent the Archangel Gabriel to a virgin in Nazareth betrothed to Joseph of the house of David. A story that sounds so simple. We’ve heard it a million times. And yet here she is, the immaculate one that he comes to, that the angel comes to and pronounces, “You have been and always will be full of grace.” Mary is the first and best disciple of her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Mary says that she rejoices in God our Savior. Why? Because no one was more perfectly saved in all of salvation history than Mary.

Mary wasn’t just saved from original sin through baptism. Mary was preserved from original sin from the beginning, from her conception. This is a grace that she could never earn herself. That’s why when we talk about the blessed Virgin Mary, we talk to her as the moon, right? It’s the brightest thing in the night sky, and yet all of its light is reflected glory. The immaculate conception teaches that Mary never had original sin and Mary never committed actual sin. But it also presupposes that as the new Eve that she had a mission, and a plan, and a purpose in the foreknowledge and predestinate plan of God. He elected her, this woman, to be the mother of the redeemer, the gebirah, the great lady, the queen mother of the king of kings, the son of David who will rule over all nations. This is incredible.

He Overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant

I love the story of Mary and the immaculate conception. And I love how her feast day falls within the story, the great narrative of Advent. It almost is like it anticipates Christmas day because that’s why God made her immaculate was so that she could be a fitting vessel, not just the new Eve who was a virgin, who was conceived without original sin, but that she would be a new Ark of the Covenant. Something made of purest gold. Something whose virtues become worthy to house the person of God, the presence of God, that Jesus Christ entered into her womb. What does it say? The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. That’s the same word in Greek, used in the Greek Old Testament to describe what God did in the Holy of Holies in the temple. He overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant.

And in the book of Revelation chapter 11, it says, “I saw the heavens open, and I saw God’s temple, and there was the Ark of the Covenant.” And then we stop reading because it’s the end of chapter 11. But if you turn the page to chapter 12, it says, “Behold a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars.” Wow, sounds like a royal lady. Sounds like a queen. And she’s pregnant with a male child destined to rule the nations. Sounds like a queen mother. I wonder who that could be. 12 stars? Sounds like the 12 apostles. Could she be the queen of the Church? Could she be the new Eve with the symbols of creation, the sun and the moon? Could this be what’s happening? It’s not like any other characters from the Genesis creation story are mentioned in Revelation. Oh wait, there is the devil, the dragon, that ancient serpent. He does war against the woman and the rest of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and follow Jesus Christ. Wow, so here we have this image of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant, pure, who kept like a temple. Her womb was the Holy of Holies. Holier than even the temple in Jerusalem’s Holy of Holies, The inner sanctuary where God Himself dwelt with humanity.

She became the immaculate one because she would be the Ark of the Covenant where the word of God, not in stone, but in flesh would dwell. Where the bread of life, not in manna collected in a jar, but in the flesh would come to her. Also in the old Ark of the Covenant was the high priest’s staff that apparently grew buds of flowers. The high priest’s rod of Aaron that budded. That’s how the book of Hebrews puts it. And Jesus would be our high priest. And Mary as the Ark of the Covenant would have this great high priest in her womb. She would offer her yes to the Father, and soon she’d be at the foot of the cross as the standing mother offering her son to the world.

Highlights Human Dignity

That great pieta scene when Michelangelo carved the sculpture of Mary holding her dead crucified son’s body. He said that he made her hips wide so that they could become an altar. Her lap could be an altar so that her son could be connected there on the cross with the altar of holy mass. The Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world.

See, this is the beauty of the immaculate conception is it makes no sense without our redemption by the cross and resurrection. The immaculate conception of Mary is so important because it shows us that God’s plan is not reactive to what we do. It’s not like God had plan A, and then we messed it up, and now He’s scrambling for plan B. In the fullness of time, born of a woman, God had His plan that there would be a woman at enmity with a serpent who would be destined to give birth to a son who would destroy the power of the serpent over us forever.

Let me say this. Mary also highlights human dignity. Mary, in her freedom from sin, she chose from, you know, as a human person, right, she had freedom of choice. She could have sinned, but she chose to cooperate with God’s grace in her. This is the height of human freedom. It’s not to do whatever I want, it’s to do the Lord’s will because that’s why I have a will. And she perfectly reflected that. And Mary, of course, points to hope. She is the first Advent. She literally awaited the coming of Jesus Christ in her womb and then into the world. She shows us how to prepare for the way of the Lord, right? This is the whole thing about repentance.

Make straight the way of the Lord, prepare his way, right? This is what Mary did. She didn’t need to repent of sin, but her heart was made ready to receive Him. Her desire to maintain her sinlessness is because she has already received the great graces of the Savior. She has nothing but hope left in her. She is the model disciple who says, “Yes.” Not just to this one point in time, to God’s plan, but to God’s plan and thus to the salvation of the world. And how it’s relevant to us today is because we can imitate, men and women can imitate the blessed Virgin Mary in her yes. Not a yes but, not a yes if, not conditional statements that we in our ego drama love to assert and slip under the door.

Mary said yes knowing that she could be stoned to death for being an adulterous, knowing that it could be very problematic with her husband Joseph, knowing that she was to be a virgin dedicated to the Lord. The Lord knows this vow of her virginity. So how can it be that I, a virgin, you know, who do not know man, like Mary was planning to live her life in this virginal way, Joseph to protect that. And yet, and yet, and yet her yes enabled a world of possibility. Your yes to God enables a world of possibility. For the Lord can do all things, and so your yes plus His overshadowing of the Holy Spirit means honestly endless possibilities.

So what are we waiting for? Yes, we were not immaculately conceived, but let’s honor her as the immaculate one. Let’s say that she is blessed among women. Let us call her who she is, the mother of God because Jesus is God. And so let’s give her the honor that she is due. Let’s praise her, but let’s always remember her immaculate conception is a grace from God that she did not earn. And our baptismal graces through the death and resurrection of Jesus is something we did not earn. So you and I have the same opportunities, the same Holy Spirit, the same power of God in our lives to cooperate and become saints. Saints one day that will live with our resurrected bodies assumed into heaven, that we will put on immortality, and we will worship God in spirit and in truth. What happened to Mary will one day happen to all God’s saints. Isn’t that awesome? The first disciple was the best disciple and becomes the example or model disciple of what’ll happen to every other disciple. If that’s not a reason to love Mary, you need a heart transplant. God bless you all. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Mother Mary, your feast day comes right in the middle of Advent so that we can be reminded to prepare for Christ. And it’s not just about doing external things like getting the house ready for company or even getting ready to go to mass. It is about, again, renewing this holy covenant with God, with the Almighty Lord who is doing great things for the lowly. Mother Mary, you were poor. That’s why you are offered turtle doves at the presentation of our Lord. And yet God chose to lift you up to be the gebirah, the great lady, the queen mother of the redeemer of the world, of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

So we thank you, Mother Mary, for your yes. And we ask, as we do all of the saints, for their prayerful intercession that we might be able to say yes without reservation, without hesitation, and without condition come what may. No matter what sufferings we may endure, we too can be like the standing mother offering Christ to the world filled with the spirit of hope. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. And in your name, we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

About Michael Gormley

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