Second Sunday of Advent

This week’s bulletin cover features Juan de Juanes’s The Immaculate Conception, a luminous 16th-century Spanish masterpiece. Painted during the Counter-Reformation, the work reflects an era when artists sought to teach the truths of the faith with beauty and clarity. Juanes places Mary at the center, radiantly poised, inviting the viewer into contemplation of her unique grace.

The painting is rich with symbolic detail drawn from Scripture and tradition. Mary stands upon the crescent moon, recalling the woman in the Book of Revelation, while her blue and white garments signify purity and heavenly favor. Lilies represent her spotless nature, roses symbolize her spiritual beauty, and the enclosed garden (in the bottom left) references Mary as the hortus conclusus, the untouched garden prepared by God. Juanes also includes the Tower of David, the Mirror of Justice, and the Gate of Heaven, reminders that Mary embodies the virtues and hopes of Israel.

This belief, though formally defined in 1854 by Pope Pius IX in Ineffabilis Deus, has deep roots in Christian tradition. Early Christians honored Mary’s holiness, and by the Middle Ages devotion to her immaculate beginning was widespread, especially in Spain. The theologian Bl. John Duns Scotus helped the Church explain how Mary could be free from original sin while still redeemed by Christ, teaching that God applied the merits of Christ’s future sacrifice to her at the moment of her conception — a grace known as “preservative redemption.” The dogma thus expresses a truth long held in the Church: that God prepared Mary in a unique and marvelous way for her role in salvation history.

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated on December 8, likewise has an ancient history, observed in the East from the 7th century and later throughout the West. Because this solemnity celebrates a foundational moment in God’s plan, His preparation of the Mother who would freely welcome Christ, the Church designates it as a Holy Day of Obligation. As we gather this week to celebrate this solemnity, we are reminded that Mary’s immaculate beginning is not only a truth about her life, but a sign of God’s desire to bring His saving work to completion in each of us. May her purity and readiness to receive Christ inspire our own openness to God’s grace.