8 December 2025 - your praises we sing

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

The man called his wife Eve,
because she became the mother of all the living.

Into a situation in which there should have been only life Adam and Eve chose to allow death to enter. They had been told the one thing to avoid, the one thing carrying the consequence of death. But they had chosen to believe the serpent rather than God. They succumbed to fear and chose to decide for themselves about good and evil. They imagined that they could subjectively impose a better order on the world than the one with which it was created by God. In that false world that they imagined they were safe from the serpent, enjoyed delicious fruit, and God didn't mind so much after all. But this was not, as we know, the result. Eve, who had been intended to be the mother of all the living became the mother of all of the spiritual dead, all mortals doomed to die.

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.

Adam and Eve didn't take God by surprise with their disobedience. He did not suddenly wish he had not created them with free will after all. No, he always had a plan to restore all things. He only ever permitted evil since from it he could bring still greater good. The enmity that was always meant to exist between the forces of darkness and the children of God would be restored. Where the disobedience of Eve brought sorrow and death, the obedience of Mary, the new Eve, would bring life and forgiveness.

Since Mary was always a part of God's plan we should not be surprised that she was given special grace to play her part. What Paul said of all us of was true of her in particular, that God "chose us in him, before the foundation of the world" and "blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens". This was why the angel greeted her by saying, "Hail, full of grace!", as though "full of grace" was such an apt description of her as to be her name. The word indicated that she had been completely filled with grace in the past in a way that continued on into the present. Years of reflecting on this mystery led the Church to recognize and gradually clarify the teaching of the Immaculate Conception. We now understand that the grace which filled her had done so from the very moment she was conceived. She had been specially protected by the grace of Christ's Passion so that she could fully cooperate in unleashing his salvation on the world, so that she could fully and without reservation welcome the one who would at last crush the head of the serpent. While Eve expressed the freedom she had been given for selfish ends, Mary used it perfectly to honor God. For this reason it is Mary, and not Eve, whom all generations will forever call blessed. But she would not wish to be alone in honoring God in this way. She desires to help us even now, today, to say yes, just as she did. Mary, mother of God, pray for us!

Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."

Damascus Worship Featuring Seph Schlueter  - Hail O Queen