Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Advent

onDec 6, 2025

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

La Crosse, Wisconsin

6 December 2025

Is 7, 10-15

Lk 1, 26-38

Sermon

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty and everlasting God. That in the veneration of the blessed Virgin Mary, we should praise, bless and proclaim Thee. For she conceived Thine only-begotten Son by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; and losing not the glory of her virginity, gave forth to the world the everlasting light, Jesus Christ, our Lord.[1]

These words of the Preface for Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary express the sublime beauty of today’s offering of the Holy Mass. Fittingly desiring to honor the Virginal Conception of Jesus during the Season of Advent which prepares us to celebrate His Nativity at Bethlehem, the Altar of Sacrifice which is always adorned with lighted candles is adorned today with a great number of lighted candles. The candles on the Altar of Sacrifice signify the presence of Christ, “the everlasting light,” as He descends from His throne at the right hand of God the Father to make sacramentally present His Sacrifice on Calvary for our eternal salvation.

The light of the many candles which dispels the darkness signifies Christ who alone brings light to the darkness of our lives and of our world. Christ is the sign, a son conceived by a virgin, who is indeed Immanuel, God dwelling with us, of which the Prophet Isaiah speaks.[2] At the Annunciation, the prophetic words of Isaiah were fulfilled. God the Son united His divine nature to our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary through the action of God the Holy Spirit so that He might bring light to a world engulfed in darkness. He brings “everlasting light” most perfectly into our lives through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and its incomparable fruit: His true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity as the Heavenly Bread to sustain us along the pilgrimage of life to our true destiny, the Kingdom of Heaven.

At the Annunciation, the Virgin Mary rightly questioned the Archangel Gabriel about the truth of his words to her: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”[3] She had vowed perpetual virginity, giving her entire being to Our Lord. How could God now want her to be also a mother? The Archangel Gabriel announced the mystery: “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”[4] There was nothing but light, beauty, and grace in the virginal conception of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The radiance of that moment of the beginning of our salvation shines forth in a wonderful way today as we venerate the Mother of God during the Season of Advent.

Today is also the First Saturday of the month which Our Lady asks us to observe with loving reparation for the indifference, ingratitude, and sinfulness which offends so grievously the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, her Divine Son, and her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, perfectly one with the Heart of Jesus. We are presently observing a novena, the conclusion of nine weeks of prayer in preparation for the celebration of the centennial of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, together with the Infant Jesus, on December 10, 1925, to the Venerable Lúcia dos Santos. During the apparition, Our Lady taught us the four practices of the First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation: the sacramental confession of our sins, the worthy reception of Holy Communion, the praying of the Rosary, and fifteen minutes of reflection on the mysteries of the Rosary, the mysteries of our salvation, in the company of our Blessed Mother.

Our Lady spoke these words to the Venerable Lúcia dos Santos:

Look, my daughter, at my Heart surrounded with thorns with which ungrateful men pierce me every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me and say that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, all those who on the first Saturday of five consecutive months, shall confess, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.[5]

All of these practices are an expression of love: sorrow for the sins by which we have failed to love God and our neighbor, worthy reception of Holy Communion by which we give our hearts totally to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus for love of Him and of our neighbor, the praying of the Holy Rosary by which we extend the graces of the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion into every aspect of our lives, and reflection on the mystery of our salvation, the mystery of our life in Christ, by the union of our hearts with the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

If you are not already practicing the First Saturdays Devotion, I urge you to begin the observance today. It is a most efficacious way to let “the everlasting light” of Christ illumine your personal life and illumine our world. By her apparition on December 10, 1925, Our Lady makes the clear the substance of the devotion: 1) a profound realization of how sin offends Our Lord and His Immaculate Mother, 2) a humble and contrite heart which strives, out of love, to make reparation for sins committed and the offense they cause to Our Lord and His Immaculate Virgin Mother, and 3) trust in the promise which accompanies the devotion, that is, Our Lady’s promise to assist at the hour of death, with all the graces necessary for salvation, those who observe the First Saturdays with true repentance and the desire to make reparation. The devotion is not an isolated act but expresses a way of life, namely, daily conversion of heart to Christ’s Most Sacred Heart, under the maternal guidance and care of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Today, we also recall the memory of Saint Nicholas of Myra or Bari who, in a heroic way, let the light of Christ illumine his life and, thus, manifested the light of Christ to a world covered with the darkness of sinfulness, of rebellion against God and His plan for our salvation. The light of Christ shone forth in Saint Nicholas by the many wonders he worked for the salvation of souls and also by his integral teaching of the faith, especially faith in Our Lord and Savior in whom both the human and divine natures are united in the one Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his commentary for the feast of Saint Nicholas, Bishop and Confessor, instructs us: “Let us admire the wonderful power which God gave him over creation; but let us offer him our most fervent congratulations for that he was permitted to be one of the three hundred and eighteen bishops, who proclaimed at Nicaea, that the Word is consubstantial with the Father.”[6] Celebrating this year, the 1700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, let us, with Mary Immaculate and Saint Nicholas, Bishop and Confessor, live more truly and fully in Christ, true God and true man, of one substance with God the Father. May He Who alone is our salvation shine forth in our daily living.

Let us now lift up our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus as He now makes sacramentally present His Sacrifice on Calvary. May “the everlasting light” which radiates from His glorious-pierced Heart shine forth in our hearts for the glory of God the Father and the salvation of countless souls.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE

[1] “Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper, et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus: Et te in veneratione beatae Mariae semper Virginis collaudare, benedicere et praedicare. Quae et Unigenitum tuum Sancti Spiritus obumbratione concepit: et virginitatis gloria permanente, lumen aeternum mundo effudit, Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.” “Preface for Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., The Saint Andrew Daily Missal (Great Falls, MT: St. Bonaventure Publications, 1999), pp. 995-996.

[2] Cf. Is 7, 14.

[3] Lk 1, 31.

[4] Lk 1, 35.

[5] “Olha minha filha, o Meu Coração cercado de espinhos, que os homens ingratos a todos os momentos me cravam com blasfémias e ingratidões. Tu ao menos procura consolar-me e diz a todos aqueles que durante cinco meses, no primeiro sábado, se confessarem, recebendo a Sagrada Comunhão, rezando um terço e me fizerem quinze minutos de companhia, meditando nos mistérios do Rosário, com o fim de me desagravarem, que eu prometo assistir-lhes na hora da morte com todas as graças necessárias para a salvação das suas almas.” Carmelo de Coimbra, Um caminho sob o olhar de Maria. Biografia da Irmã Maria Lúcia de Jesus e do Coração Imaculado (Marco de Canaveses: Edições Carmelo, 2013), p. 168. English translation: Carmel of Coimbra, A Pathway Under the Gaze of Mary: Biography of Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart, O.C.D., tr. James A. Colson (Washington, NJ: World Apostolate of Fatima, USA, 2015), p. 158. The English translation of the Portuguese word, “terço”, has been corrected from “one decade” to “five decades,” that is a third of the entire 15 traditional mysteries of the Rosary.

[6] “Rendons hommage au souverain pouvoir que Dieu lui avait donné sur la nature; mais félicitons-le surtout d’avoir été du nombre des trois cent dix-huit Évêques qui proclamèrent, à Nicée, le Verbe consubstantiel au Père.” Prosper Guéranger, L’Année liturgique, L’Avent, 14^ème éd. (Paris: Librairie Religieuse H. Oudin, 1900), p. 371. English translation: Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Advent, tr. Laurence Shepherd (Great Falls, MT: St. Bonaventure Publications, 2000), p. 340.