The Immaculate conception

Today is a solemnity.  It is the feast of the Immaculate conception.  Since it always occurs in the middle of Advent, there is some confusion about what we are celebrating.  Here is a clue: there are nine months between conception and birth, and there are seventeen days until Christmas.  We are not celebrating the conception of our Lord.  Today we remember Mary's conception.  

Mary was conceived without sin.  The Church teaches that not only did Mary avoid sinning during her life, Mary was conceived free from original sin.  

The first reading today is from the third chapter of Genesis.

"After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself.”
Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?
You have eaten, then,
from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with meC
she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.”
The LORD God then asked the woman,
“Why did you do such a thing?”
The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this, you shall be banned
from all the animals
and from all the wild creatures;
on your belly shall you crawl,
and dirt shall you eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike at your head,
while you strike at his heel.”

The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living."  Genesis 3:9-15, 20

Mary is the new Eve.  Eve was the 'mother of all the living.'  Mary is Mother to all her Son's followers.  We are the Body of Christ, and she is our Mother.  Eve listened to the serpent, and fell.  Mary gave birth to Jesus, who conquered sin.  Today is a celebration of second chances.