Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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Salve, Regina
Homily on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Taken from here - December 9, 2024

Salve, Regina. These are the opening words of one of the prayers that is simultaneously both rich with doctrine and spirituality, and also most dear to the Christian people. It is the simple, composed, reverent greeting of an infinite host of souls that rises up from every part of the world – and also from the purifying pains of Purgatory – to the August Virgin Mother, Our Lady, whom we honor as Queen by virtue of Her Divine Motherhood, of the merits of the Co-Redemption and of the very special privileges with which, in view of the Incarnation, She was awarded by the Most Holy Trinity. Those voices are joined by those of the angelic Hierarchies and of the Saints, who from their dwelling place of glory celebrate She who, above all creatures, was chosen to be the Tabernacle of the Most High, the Ark of the Eternal Covenant in which is kept the fullness of the Law, the Bread of Life, the scepter of the new Aaron, the oil of royal and priestly Anointing. Mary Most Holy is also the Queen of the Cross: Her Queenship, on the model of the Lordship of Christ, was conquered in the co-Passion and crowned in the Co-Redemption, because there can be no glory of victory without first climbing Calvary. Whoever does not recognize Mary Most Holy as Queen and Mistress, does not recognize Jesus Christ as King, nor can anyone who does not honor His Mother hope to take part in the banquet of the Sovereign

Mater misericordiæ. The Most Holy Virgin is the Mother of Divine Mercy incarnate; Mother of Him whom the Father in mercy desired as our Redeemer. She is the Mother of mercy because Her Son, Our Lord, chose Her to be Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all Graces. Not only the faithful – who invoke Her as Auxilium Christianorum – but also the Holy Church, which venerates Her as Her own Mother and Queen, entrust themselves to Her merciful intercession. During this terrible eclipse that has obscured the Bride of the Lamb and replaced Her with a heretical counterfeit, we invoke the help of the One who alone has routed all heresies in the entire world – quæ sola cunctas hæreses interemisti in universo mundo, the Liturgy says – so that She may give us strength and perseverance, hasten the triumph of the Church of Christ, and destroy the infernal plans of the Adversary and his servants, both internal and external. The crisis that is troubling the ecclesial body can only be healed when the Hierarchy returns to the feet of the Mother of Mercy and Regina Crucis.

Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra: salve. The Blessed Virgin Mary is our Life: through Her the Son of God took on our human nature, incarnating Himself in Her virginal womb and sitting on the immaculate Throne of Her Most Holy Conception, the sublime miracle of the Most August Trinity. She is our sweetness, because in Her we find the highest example of those virtues that our humanity corrupted by original sin will never be able to equal, first of all Her being Mother of God, Mother of Christ, and our Mother in Him. Her love as a Mother, together with Her Immaculate Virginal purity and Her humility, make the Most Holy Virgin the most hated and feared of all creatures by Satan, who is capable only of bringing death to the body and soul precisely because he is incapable, due to his pride, of loving God and conforming to His will. With Her heel the Virgo Potens will crush the head of the ancient Serpent, just as Our Lord will exterminate the Antichrist and the cursed lineage of Satan. The apparent triumph of the wicked and the betrayal carried out by the conciliar and synodal Hierarchy must not deprive us of the inner peace that comes from consecrating ourselves to spes nostra.

Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevæ. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes, in hac lacrimarum valle. We are children of wrath, born in sin because of the guilt of our Progenitors, brought to birth in pain, and then doomed to be inclined to evil, to suffer, and to die, as slaves of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But if Adam fell because of a woman and with him all humanity; now – because of the Woman whose head is crowned with stars, the new Eve – the new Adam, Jesus Christ, has come into the world to redeem us through his Passion and Death. For this reason, in the Salve Regina, we are certain that by recognizing ourselves as exsules filii Hevæ – children of Eve expelled from their homeland – we can trust that Mary Most Holy, Janua cœli, will open the doors of the heavenly Jerusalem also to us, Her children in the order of Grace. To Her, then, rise our sighs, our heart-rending laments, our cries: because we are in a valley of tears due to our distance from the heavenly Homeland, in which all our yearnings, all our desires are fulfilled in God. Woe to us, if we were to consider our earthly pilgrimage not as a temporary phase of passage towards eternity, but as our goal: because in that instant we would no longer recognize ourselves as exsules, we would nullify the Redemption of our Savior Jesus Christ and the Co-Redemption of the Virgin Mother. Woe to us if we would not recognize ourselves as filii Hevæ, because if there were no guilt to expiate, no offense to repair, there would not even be need of a Redeemer to ransom us, nor of a Mother to give birth to Emmanuel. In a world sold out to the Evil One that celebrates the death of the soul and the body; in a counterfeit church that follows the world in its dance macabre towards the abyss, we keep the Blessed Virgin Mary as our guiding star, and we invoke from Her the Grace of final perseverance.

Eja, ergo, Advocata nostra: illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. The Most Holy Virgin is our Advocate before the Throne of the Son, just as the Son (1 John 2:2) and the Holy Spirit (John 14:16) are our Divine Advocates before the Throne of the Father. It is She, who is Omnipotent by Grace, who intercedes in our defense. And as the Father forgives our sins through the infinite merits of His Son, so the Most Sacred Heart of the Son does not remain hardened before the plea of the Immaculate Heart of the Mother in our favor. And in order for our hope not to be disappointed, it is enough for us that She turns her gaze upon us, those eyes of mercy – misericordes oculos – merciful eyes that desire to give mercy. Not the false mercy of those who deny guilt and the need for conversion and reparation; not the hypocritical simulacrum of traitorous and lying mercenaries, but true Mercy, which is founded on Justice and Charity.

Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. Our painful exile in this middle earth will end with our passage into eternity, when the time of Mercy will run out and the time of Justice arrives. It will be by virtue of our devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary during our earthly life that we will be able to raise our gaze towards the Rex tremendæ majestatis, because on the plates of the scale with which the Archangel Saint Michael weighs souls, there will be our sins on one side, but on the other side our love for the Virgin Mother and Queen and Her powerful intercession. Mater mea, fiducia mea! Not the illusory trust of those who believe themselves saved and think that God loves us just as we are, but rather the theological hope that gives us the certainty of divine help in facing trials and in getting up again when we fall. Not the trust of those who challenge the Holy Spirit and challenge Revealed Truth, but rather the trust of filial abandonment to the embrace of the Mater misericordiæ, who will present us before the Throne of Divine Majesty protected by Her mantle. To Our Lord Jesus Christ, King and High Priest, we renew our profession of Faith, so that during this temporary eclipse of His Glory, we may make ourselves worthy of witnessing His final triumph.

O clemens. O pia. O dulcis Virgo Maria. O You, who are merciful: inclined to forgive and who punish with meekness. O You, who are pious: merciful, faithful, and devoted. O You, who are the sweet Virgin Mary: sweet as Your embrace in which our earthly life will be extinguished, sweet as being next to You in the glory of the Holy Trinity, sweet as the song that the Holy Church intones in Your honor, both here on earth and in heaven.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

8 December 2024
In Conceptione Immaculatæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis