How can we relate to Mary as the Immaculate Conception ?
Answering this question can be found in Mary’s FIAT – her “yes” She who is full of grace says a consequential “yes” to God in response to Eve’s “no”.
The “yes” of Mary shows that grace triumphs over sin. Mary’s enmity for the serpent out of total love for God was not a one-time declaration.
Mary would continue to reject Satan, all his empty promises, and all his evil works throughout her life into eternity, which is what I would say, highlights her self-identification as the Immaculate Conception.
And so how does this relate to us ?
Like Mary, we should have a true enmity for evil through the gift of redemption we receive not at our conception, but at our baptism and thereafter in the reception of the sacraments. So then we might be full of grace, full of God, full of joy, full of life.
St. Paul reminds us of this when he says that God the Father “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, to be holy and immaculate in His sight” and to “live for the praise of his glory” ( Ephesians 1 :3-6, 11-12).
Father Kevin Lix, Parochial Vicar