Preparing the Table for the Lord

December 9, 2024 - Monday of the Second Week of Advent

I began my new position here at Immaculate Conception Seminary as the Director of Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program on September 1, 2024. It is a great joy to be back ministering in the seminary where I spent five years studying and preparing for ministry as a priest. Recently, I have been noticing and reflecting upon the magnificent statue of the Immaculate Conception that greets everyone who enters the seminary lobby. The beautiful marble statue portrays the Blessed Virgin Mary in a peaceful, loving, and welcoming position with hands joined together in prayer and a serene smile upon her face. With the light shining down upon this image, one is drawn to the Virgin with her prayerful greeting. I have been pondering this statue thinking about the countless number of visitors and resident seminarians and priests who have been greeted by this inspiring statue lifting one up with hospitality and assurance of hope that Mary is there for us leading us to her Son, Jesus Christ. It is the first image that greets us and reminds us of the mission and importance of the seminary, to prepare men studying for the priesthood and diaconate, and to help all our students grow in their love of Christ and to serve the Church today.  With Mary at the helm, she welcomes and directs us to her Son.

On this Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, our patronal feast day, we are reminded that Mary is the model of hospitality. In the Gospel of St. Luke, we are told that the angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her of God’s plan for her to be the Mother of the Savior. Mary greeted and welcomed the angel and, in her prayer, accepted his invitation to be an instrument of God’s plan for Redemption. That pattern of hospitality can serve as an example for us this Advent to be welcoming and open to God’s invitation to us to be instruments of His Divine plan and to follow wherever God may be calling in our spiritual lives.

In the Rule of St. Benedict Chapter 53, we read: “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, ‘I came as a guest, and you received Me.’ And to all let due honor be shown, especially to the domestics of the faith and the pilgrims.”  Like the statue of the Immaculate Conception in the lobby of the seminary. may we be a welcoming presence to our guests that we greet each day and may we be open to the invitation God sends us at different moments of our lives to follow Him, trust Him, and welcome Him!

O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin prepared a worthy dwelling for your Son, grant, we pray, that, as you preserved her from every stain by virtue of the death of your Son, which you foresaw, so, through her intercession, we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen

Rev. Dominic Ciriaco, D.Min., Director of Preaching as Hospitality Formation Program, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology

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