My nationality by birth is Colombian. I also received the American nationality in 2008 after the process of naturalization. Birth and naturalization grants rights to people. I recalled the process of my American naturalization during these past days as I reflected on the readings for today’s solemnity.

Adam and Eve were created as children of God and with the right to heaven. They had the “heavenly” nationality by birth if you will. The Church gives a name to these gifts bestowed on them from God from the beginning: sanctifying grace. The Church teaches us that the chief gift bestowed on Adam and Eve by God was sanctifying grace, which made them children of God and gave them the right to heaven.

The Church also teaches us that, when they committed original sin, they lost their sanctifying grace. And all their descendants come into this world lacking sanctifying grace. Today’s solemnity is about the moment in history when the exception of this rule took place.

Over two thousand years ago, a uniquely special woman was conceived not lacking sanctifying grace. This special woman became the Mother of God, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father wanted that the earthly mother of his Beloved Son would be free from the stain of sin so that he would not be defiled by it at his conception in the flesh. God being almighty was able to perform this miracle.

When this special woman was in her early teens, she received the extraordinary visit of one of the greatest messengers from heaven, the Archangel Saint Gabriel. He greeted her with those incredible words and the amazing title: “Hail, full of grace!” She was a new creation, free from sin, filled with sanctifying grace.

What the Lord did for us with his passion, death, and resurrection was to make this sanctifying grace available to us. This chief divine gift is what the sacrament of Baptism grants to a soul.

The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life”. This beautiful gift of our sanctifying grace shines perfectly in the person of the Immaculate Conception. She is our model of holiness and our advocate of grace.

Let us humbly ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for us. “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee”.