Introductory Prayer
Lord God,
may our gifts be sanctified by the Holy Spirit,
who formed the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be a new creation
and sent down upon her
the dew of heavenly grace,
so that her womb might bear
the fruit of our salvation,
Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
Reading: Gn 3:1-6, 13-15
The serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden; neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'”
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.” The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all cattle,
and above all wild animals;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Consideration
“Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word, is placed at the very center of that enmity, that struggle, that accompanies the history of humanity on earth and the history of salvation itself. In this central place, she who belongs to the ‘weak and poor of the Lord’ bears in herself, like no other member of the human race, that ‘glory of grace’ which the Father ‘has bestowed on us in his beloved Son,’ and this grace determines the extraordinary greatness and beauty of her whole being. Mary thus remains before God, and also before the whole of humanity, as the unchangeable and inviolable sign of God’s election, spoken of in Paul’s letter: ‘in Christ … he chose us … before the foundation of the world, … he destined us … to be his sons’ (Eph 1:4, 5). This election is more powerful than any experience of evil and sin, than all that ‘enmity’ that marks the history of man. In this history Mary remains a sign of sure hope.”38
The Holy Rosary may be prayed.
Concluding Prayer
Lord God,
you prepared a worthy dwelling place for your
Son by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin;
grant, we pray,
that, as you preserved her from all stain of sin
in your foreknowledge of his death,
so we, by her intercession,
may come to you with pure hearts.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
