“Hello?” my mother’s voice sings as she picks up my call.
“Hi, Mama!”
“You sound tired,” she immediately diagnoses me.
Surprised, I start soul searching, “Oh really?”
“Yes. I can hear it in your voice,” she says confidently, “Take care. I know how hard you work. Remember you can only do what you can do. Have you eaten?”
I used to tease my mother about her sixth sense. But as I grow older, I just lean in. I lean in and thank her. I lean in when I listen to stories about how my squirminess in her womb told her I had different character than my brothers. I lean in when she tells me about my sass at three years old. I lean in when she reveals to me who I am in her eyes because I have learned that no one knows me like my mother.
Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s a huge day in our family, the Church—not only because it’s a solemnity and not a feast—but also because we celebrate the unfathomable beauty of the one who was “full of grace” (Luke 1:28). Mary is totally pure and therefore the perfect reflection of God’s love and she is also our Mother and the Mother of God.
Sisters, imagine if we all asked for the grace to love Jesus’ mother more today and believed that God would make it happen. Let’s ask this for ourselves and for every sister in Blessed Is She. Then let’s ask with faith that “[God bless] us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens” (Ephesians 1:3). God will answer our prayers. And we will not only find delight together in Heaven, but we could gain graces now to catapult all of us closer to one another, to the Saints in Heaven, and to God Himself.
For details on what it means to be conceived without original sin, check out this section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Sister Maria Kim Bui is a Daughter of Saint Paul, women religious dedicated to evangelization in and through the media. She is originally from Tempe, AZ, spent most of her fourteen years in religious life in the northeast, some time in Texas, and now was recently asked to serve as the director of marketing and sales at the Sisters' publishing house in Boston. Find out more about her here. She is the author of our Blessed Conversations Mystery: Belong found here.
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