8 December 2025 (Monday) / The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary ‐ Solemnity / Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Solemnity, Holy Day of Obligation / Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

8 December 2025 (Monday)

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary ‐ Solemnity.

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Solemnity, Holy Day of Obligation.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Readings from the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church:

First Reading: Genesis 3: 9-15, 20
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 98: 1-4
Second Reading: Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12
Alleluia: Luke 1: 28
Gospel: Luke 1: 26-38

First Reading : Genesis 3:9‐15,20

After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, ‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life. I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’ The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.

Responsive Psalm : Psalm 97(98):1‐4

Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
Sing a new song to the Lord
  for he has worked wonders.
His right hand and his holy arm
  have brought salvation.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
The Lord has made known his salvation;
  has shown his justice to the nations.
He has remembered his truth and love
  for the house of Israel.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.
All the ends of the earth have seen
  the salvation of our God.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth,
  ring out your joy.
Sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders.

Second Reading : Ephesians 1:3‐6,11‐12

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ. Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved, And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

Alleluia: Luke 1: 28
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
28 Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel : Luke 1:26‐38

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

For our reflection today:

“Nothing is impossible for God...” (Luke 1:37). Only with the infinite power of love can we explain the fact that God the Word, God the Son, became man. Only with the inscrutable power of God's love can we explain the fact that the Virgin—the daughter of human parents—became the Mother of God. Yet this fact was incomprehensible to her: “How is this possible? I do not know man” (Luke 1:34). However, “nothing is impossible for God”! Since the omnipotence of the Eternal Father and the infinite power of love working with the power of the Holy Spirit cause the Son of God to become man in the womb of the Virgin of Nazareth, then the same power, in consideration of the merits of the Redeemer, preserves his Mother from the inheritance of original sin.  “Nothing is impossible for God”! Let us reflect on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. Listening to the living Word of God, which speaks to us from the depths of the first advent, let us face everything that the time of man and the world can bring us. Let us be united with the Woman par excellence, Mary. (St. John Paul II, Homily, 8 December 1981)

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love (Blessed  and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)