Sunday, December 8th (the usual date of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception)
“(My wife) I am going to take her into the desert again ; there I will win her back with words of love. There I will give back her vineyards… She will respond to me there as she did when she was young, when she came from Egypt”. (Hosea 2)
In the Book of Hosea, God is complaining of the infidelity of his “wife” (Israel), who has turned towards other gods and idols. In these verses which we are quoting, God is preparing a purification for his “wife”, which will lead to a new Covenant. The Virgin Mary, Immaculate, will be the first fully accomplished fruit of this new Covenant. In Her, Israel rediscovers her basic purity and responds completely to the expectation and to the desire of the “Hearts” of God. This “New Israel”, in Mary, finally becomes the “wife”, which God had always desired, of which He had “dreamt”, a wife according to His “Heart”. “How beautiful you are my love, how perfect you are !” (Song of songs 4)
Prayer :
extracts from the acathist hymn, in honour of the Virgin Mary.
“Bring me joy, through whom evil disappeared : rejoice, you lift Adam up from his fall…”
…
