During his homily, Fr Martoglio outlined some basic features of the figure of Mary and the Salesian celebration, and began by recalling how Mary's Immaculate Conception was widespread in popular knowledge long before the Church recognized it with the dogma in 1854.
"This extraordinary, special grace of Mary as 'Immaculate' speaks to us of a woman who was untouched, nor ruined by original sin, this dimension that we all carry within us and which causes us to sometimes think one thing and do another... Well, this great grace of Mary is not for Her, but for us: because from Mary's faith comes the Saviour Jesus!" the Rector Major's Vicar recalled.
He then invited everyone to live the liturgical season of Advent "by putting onself in the school of Mary", She who with her faith and heart made the celebration of Christmas possible.
In his remarks, Fr Martoglio therefore observed that the greatness and importance of the feast of the Immaculate Conception lies in the fact that Mary "restores in the heart of God the harmony of the beginnings, the harmony of Creation. Through Her, humanity recovers that grace lost in the Garden of Eden with the sin of Adam and Eve.
Regarding the biblical account of that episode, Fr Martoglio highlighted how God's question, "Adam, where are you?" actually hides a broader applicable question that God asks every man or woman of all times: "Where are you heading in your life? I have created you for total harmony, with Creation, with Me, with your brothers and sisters, and with yourself. But you, where have you gone?" And this disharmony, this rupture generated by man's sin persists unchanged over time, without anyone taking responsibility for it: Adam dumps it on Eve, Eve on the serpent...
The condition of humanity from that moment on becomes difficult and painful. "But the Lord," observed the Rector Major's Vicar, "does not allow humanity to lose its way to the life of happiness". And in fact, with Mary "he resumes God's initial dream so that humanity can be in communion with God, always, as in the beginning, through the incarnation".
Turning to the Gospel narration of the day, Fr Martoglio focused on the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel, who calls Mary "Full of grace", thus expressing "how she appears in the eyes of God". And after examining the dialogue between the angel and the Virgin, marked by concreteness and readiness, the Rector Major's Vicar highlighted the faith of Mary, who with her fiat initiated the Lord's Incarnation and Christmas. “Let us ask God to have the same faith as Mary,” Fr Martoglio concluded.
At the end of the Eucharist, emphasizing the Salesian value of the feast, the assembly listened with lively participation to the reading of the passage from Don Bosco's Memoirs of the Oratory in which he describes his first meeting with the young Bartholomew Garelli. Afterwards, all those present gathered, in front of the statue of Mary Immaculate, to perform the traditional homage of the Marian Circle: a Hail Mary, recited together, recalling that first Hail Mary pronounced by Don Bosco with Garelli in the sacristy of the church of St Francis of Assisi, prayed in spiritual communion with the other hundreds of houses of the Salesian Family all over the world, that on the same day performed the same act symbolically with nostalgic memories.
