Vigils reading – Immaculate Conception

THE FAVORED ONE

From a commentary by Sophronius of Jerusalem

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Hail full of grace, the Lord is with you. Truly blessed are you among

women, for you have changed the curse of Eve into a blessing and caused Adam,

once accursed, to be blessed through you. Truly blessed are you among

women, for it was through you that the Father’s blessing dawned on humankind

and freed it from the ancient curse. Truly blessed are you among women, for

through you your ancestors will be saved, since you are going to bear the Savior

who will gain them God’s salvation. Truly blessed are you among women, for

without seed you produced the fruit that brings blessing to all the earth,

releasing it from the curse that made it bear thorns. Truly blessed are you

among women, for though by nature you are a woman, you will in very truth

become the mother of God: if he who is to be born of you is truly God incarnate,

then, since you will be giving birth to God, you will with perfect justice be called

the mother of God.

Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God that can

never be lost. You have won from God a most glorious favor, a grace long

desired, a grace of great splendor, a saving grace, an unfailing grace, a grace that

will last for ever. Many before you have been holy, but no one has been as

favored as you, no one as blessed as you, no one as perfectly sanctified as you, no

one as highly praised as you. No one else has like you been possessed from the

first by purifying grace, no one else has been enlightened like you, or exalted like

you, for no one has approached so close to God as you, or been enriched with

such divine gifts, or endowed with such heavenly grace.

You surpass all human desire; you surpass all the gifts given by God to the

whole human race, for God’s dwelling within you has made you richer than all

others. No one else has been able to contain God as you do; no one else has been

capable of receiving God as you have; no one else has deserved to be so

enlightened by God. And therefore you have not only received God, the Creator

and Lord of the universe, but He has in an unheard-of way taken flesh from you;

you bear him in your womb, and will later give birth to him who will redeem

humankind from the Father’s sentence, and confer on it eternal salvation.