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Advent is the Season during which Christians prepare for the coming of Jesus. Tradition and the Liturgy focus on this coming in three distinct  categories. Since the season ends in Christmas the obvious one is the commemoration of our Lords coming into the world in Bethlehem. We also look towards His coming at the end and consummation of all things where He will be Judge of each of us. The third coming we look forwards to is the birth, by grace, of Jesus in our hearts. In each of these categories Mary has a unique an irreplaceable role to play.

In the first Advent it was Mary, the God bearer, who was most intimately involved in this coming in the flesh of our Lord. Each Christian is nourished by the blood of Jesus but only Mary nourished  Jesus with her blood, and never more than in these final weeks and days before the first Christmas. Mary, the Virgin Mother to be, the one full of grace, the one blessed among women. Who knows what thoughts, and hopes and fears she experienced that first Advent? What prayers she offered up, what the meditations of her heart consisted of. Motherhood is always a new beginning, an adventure, a risk. How much more for this young Galilean women with her unborn Son, announced by an Angel as Son of of the Most High, heir of David who would reign forever, conceived by the Holy Spirit and with no palace to be born into? Let us with Mary prepare ourselves for Christmas, excited with hope, resolute in faith, inspired by love,

In the last Sunday before Advent we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. He is not without his Queen in heaven, nor shall He be without her upon His return. In anticipating His coming with power the Church eagerly looks forward to the time when every tear will be wiped away, death will be no more and rejoicing and gladness will reign for evermore.  By her Assumption, body and soul into heaven Mary is the first resurrected creature. She enjoys now, as a special privilege, what all the resurrected will enjoy in that blessed time. More than that, by her prayers now, prayers on behalf of sinners and the lost, she adds daily to the number of the saved. Her intercession turns away the anger of her Son the Judge and calls to His mind His mercy so that when He comes again many who would be lost can now look forward with hope to salvation through the blood of Christ and the prayers of Mary.

And Mary, as Mediatrix of Grace, as gentle dispenser of the Holy Spirit to us is the material agent to bring to birth Christ in our hearts as once she brought Him to birth in a stable in Nazareth. Indeed Christ comes to birth only through Mary. his Advent season then should find us incessantly turning our eyes towards her and imploring her to show us the blessed fruit of her womb Jesus. It is no coincidence that the great Marian feast of the Immaculate Conception occurs during this time. It is a sign on the one hand that all Mary has comes to her as a free gift from God, she like us is wholly dependant upon Him. It is a sign also of just how greatly privileged she is, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast “, privileges she has been granted not for her benefit but for ours. Let us never cease to have recourse to her prayers.