Dec 8th - Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Immaculate Heart of Mary,
Stephen B. Whatley, 2010.
You can view more of Whatley’s work here.

From PrayTell

If you knew the gift of God, Christ said one evening to the Samaritan woman.  Yet what is this gift of God but himself? He came to his own home, and his own people received him not, declared the beloved Disciple. To many a soul might Saint John the Baptist utter the reproach:  Among you stands one whom you do not know. 

There is one created being who did know that gift of God, who lost no particle of it; a creature so pure and luminous that she seemed to be the Light itself: Mirror of righteousness – a being whose life was so simple, so lost in God, that there is but little to say of it: the faithful Virgin, who kept all these words in her heart. She was so lowly, so hidden in God…that she drew upon herself the regard of the Holy Trinity: Because he has regarded the humility of his handmaid, for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

By St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (1880-1906)