On the path of Advent, we encounter this beautiful feast of the Mother of Christ: the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Today we contemplate Our Lady in her beauty: the beauty of holiness and the beauty of grace. The angel in today's Gospel calls her "full of grace": “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28). Pope Benedict XVI said that "full of grace" It is the most beautiful name of Mary, the name that God himself gave her to indicate that she has always been and always will be the beloved.
Mary not only has a beautiful name, but also a beautiful personality and identity. She has been blessed with all the spiritual blessings of heaven to be holy and immaculate. Today's feast allows us to contemplate this spotless beauty, the beauty of being full of grace, of being full of Christ.
This beauty has been captured in many works of art. I remember my brief pastoral experience in Valencia. For the first time, I encountered a statue of the Virgin adorned with earrings. It caught my attention because it was something foreign to my sensibility. But as I visited more churches, I discovered that many images of Mary there—including the patron saint of the city—were richly adorned with earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and crowns. Those adornments were not mere objects of vanity, but artistic attempts to express outwardly the splendor of Mary's inner holiness. Mary's beauty needed expression through those objects. They were there to beautify the Virgin and, at the same time, to manifest her inner beauty. The entrance antiphon of today's liturgy, from the prophet Isaiah, can be attributed to Mary, whose soul rejoices because she has been clothed with the garments of salvation and the mantle of justice: “like a bride adorned with her jewelry” (Isaiah 61:10).
As we marvel at Mary's beauty, we remember that we too have been made beautiful before God with all spiritual blessings and are called to be saints. Much depends on whether we say “yes” to God’s plan as Mary did in the Gospel, or whether we say “no” as Adam and Eve did in the first reading. We can also try to discover the particular blessing that God has given each of us to fulfill the mission he has entrusted to us.
The Spanish writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, in his legend The gold anklet, It tells the story of a woman named Mary, who went to Toledo Cathedral on the feast day of the Virgin Mary. While she was praying, her gaze was not fixed on the Virgin, but on the gold anklet that adorned the arm holding the Divine Child. She was captivated, covetous, even obsessed, by the brilliance of the jewel, to such an extent that she no longer saw the Virgin she venerated, but another woman who mocked her for not possessing such a treasure. For her, Mary had ceased to be a model from whom to learn and had become a rival.
The Virgin Mary does not boast of her privileges, nor should her beauty and graces be presented as a reason for comparison. She has not been given to us as a rival. The feast of the Immaculate Conception reminds us that we have all been blessed in a special way for God's mission, and that we are called to respond to that gift with our “yes,” just as Mary did. Her jewels are gifts from God and her grateful acceptance of the gifts and the mission inherent in them.
