About Mary, there is never enough

National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC
November 7, 2015

A pilgrimage is like going home.  Such a “homecoming” may not actually be to a place we have been before, although most of us have been here at the Basilica of National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception before, perhaps for a previous diocesan pilgrimage or for the annual Mass for Life in January or for some other visit.  For me, being at the National Shrine is actually “coming home” since I lived here on these grounds for almost 13 years, immediately before becoming your Bishop.  I cannot count the times I have celebrated Masses, preached, heard confessions or knelt here by myself is deep prayer.   It is wonderful to be back and I am thrilled that I could bring 50 buses and a few thousand of my closest friends with me!  But, whether you have been here before or not, this Basilica is our nation’s Church and it is your home for it belongs to you.

We often refer to this great Church as “Mary’s House” because it is dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God and patroness of the United States under the title of the “Immaculate Conception.”  It was to her, to Mary, that Jesus made the very first “pilgrimage” and took up his home in her womb.  And so, for us as Catholic Christians, it is so fitting to make our pilgrimage here.  We “come home” to our Catholic faith.

We have heard today’s Gospel, St. Luke’s narrative of the Annunciation, so often in the Church’s celebrations of Mary, the Mother of God.  Today that Word is proclaimed once more and our attention is drawn to the consequence of what this Gospel describes to us. Mary, as the Church’s prayers so often remind us, “sinless from the first moment of her conception,” accepts the message of God spoken by the Angel Gabriel and the salvation Christ would bring about by his Cross and Resurrection was conceived in her. What a beautiful relationship between Our Blessed Mother’s own destiny at the moment of her conception and the destiny of the Church and each one of us at that same moment.

As we read, as we listen to today’s Gospel we can only imagine what it must have been like for this young woman — barely a woman, really — to hear the words of the Angel “you have found favor with God … you shall conceive a son, Jesus … to be called Son of the Most High.” Amazed, startled, “deeply troubled” St. Luke tells us, Mary “wondered” what this was all about. “How can this be?” was her simple reply. Not a doubt, not a protest but an expression of wonder. Mary “wondered” what his greeting meant.

In her own mind and experience, her life was ordinary. She lived her life without much difference from other Jewish girls at the time. And yet our Catholic faith tells us, hers was a “life of love that never knew sin,” far from ordinary and quite different than any other human being who ever lived. “How can this be?” The grace of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, the power of the Most High. And in the experience of “wonder,” Mary’s question was followed her marvelous statement of faith, “I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done to me.”  It was, perhaps, the greatest act of faith the world has ever known.

What had happened through her own conception would bear witness to what would be for us as she conceived. And as she conceived Jesus Christ in her womb, the Church was conceived, we were conceived.

Quite simply, our pilgrimage here today to Mary’s House is an opportunity for us to “come home” to the beginning of our faith and to the goal of our faith: God’s Son, Mary’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Let’s think about that for a moment, let’s reflect upon our own faith. Unlike Mary, we have been touched by sin. And yet, like Mary, we have also experienced the grace and power of God in our lives, drawing us beyond weakness, moving us closer to him. When we are tempted, our weakness prevails. When we sin, we diminish our own destiny. At those times — at any time when we encounter human frailty — we must hear the Angel Gabriel’s announcement of salvation. How can we remain strong? How can we overcome? How can this be? The answer for us is always the same: the grace and power of God. And in our faith, like Mary, we hand ourselves over to God, to Christ remembering that “nothing is impossible with God,” that in him and only in him, the impossible is possible. The inconceivable is conceived. Our pilgrimage is an invitation to make her words, our own: “I am the servant of the Lord, let it be done to me as you say.”

Today, Mary’s faith touches us deeply once again. The eloquent Doctor of the Church St. Bernard once wrote, “De Maria, numquam satis — about Mary, there is never enough.”  Husbands and wives; fathers and mothers; sons and daughters; men and women who are single; priests, deacons, seminarians, religious, members of the lay faithful from parishes all over the Diocese of Trenton.  We look to her like a star in the sky, whether the waters of our life in which we find ourselves immersed are calm or deeply troubled.  She is the “Star of the Sea.”  She will lead us home to our faith.  We place ourselves today in the loving arms of Mary, Mother of the Church, the earthly home of our faith, in our ongoing pilgrimage of ever-deepening faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of All Mercy.