Before you were born

I received a message from a vendor today that included a warm acknowledgement of today's Holy Day along with a memory of her own childhood in Catholic school on December 8th.  It made me pause. Are we doing enough to assure that our children will carry forward a knowledge and reverence for the traditions - and essence - of our faith?

Today is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.  As Catholics, we know this as one of the Holy Days of Obligation, but what, exactly, does that mean?

In addition to every Sunday, there are a few other days in each calendar year that are deemed so important as to require our deliberate attention and participation at Mass.

• January 1 - The solemnity of Mary
• Thursday of the sixth week of Easter - The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord
• August 15 - The Assumption of Mary
• November 1 - The solemnity of All Saints 
• December 8 - The solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
• December 25 - The solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord, or what we more commonly call Christmas

Whenever January 1st,  August 15th, or November 1st falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, a diocese may (and ours does) remove the obligation to attend Mass, often leaving just a few remaining obligatory days each year.  But even so, in this age when even Sunday Mass attendance is viewed as optional, honoring these special days has become less and less common with each passing year.  It seems that as it becomes more commonplace to look at the Holy Days as some quaint remnant of an earlier time, it also becomes easier to get swept up in this momentum of turning away and take the posture that honoring the day must, indeed, be optional - because, look around.  Hardly anyone is going to Mass. But the difficult truth is that it's not optional.  These days are fundamental to our identity - and obligation - as Catholics.  So perhaps, before we wake up and realize that we're more than a generation removed from a real understanding of what we believe, some instruction is in order. 

Because of its proximity to Christmas, many good Catholics misunderstand the Immaculate Conception as referring to the conception of Jesus, but of course if we do the math, it becomes clear that this is not what we honor today.  Rather, it's the conception of the Virgin Mary herself in her mother, Anne's, womb.  We acknowledge today, our fundamental belief that Mary was chosen by God to bear his son from before she was even conceived, and was then conceived without sin to be worthy of this remarkable role.  There's much more to the story of course, as we will learn when we read about Mary's Yes in the Annunciation - at the age of about fourteen.

One remarkable gift for us today is the reminder that God has chosen each of us for some particular role in his grand plan.  To be able to say "yes," we have to hear him calling.  To hear, we have to be listening.  To listen, we have to be in relationship.  Advent is a great time to deepen your relationship with God.  The Holy Days are an opportunity.  Don't miss the opportunity...go to Mass, show your children that this is essential, and reap the harvest of God's amazing plan for your life!

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.     
Jeremiah 1:5