Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, 2025

My first assignment as a priest was at Our Lady Of Victory Basilica. And, if you’ve been there, you know that Fr. Baker’s tomb is right in the church: There’s kneelers and some pews that face the tomb so that, when people want to pray for Fr. Baker’s intercession, it’s quite easy.

What you may also notice is that, when people are praying at Fr. Baker’s tomb, their back is to the tabernacle; their back is to Jesus physically present in the church.


And if you could imagine Fr. Baker appearing at his tomb, he might say, “Turn around. Face your Lord. Go to Jesus.”


What I could also imagine is, if we were then to turn to Jesus, and if Jesus were to appear, He might say, “Turn. Look at my masterpiece. See what my grace can do in someone’s life? Isn’t it beautiful?”


And this is the relation between Jesus and His saints: Our devotion to the saints always bring us closer to Jesus, and Jesus Himself delights in the Saints and wants us to be inspired by them because they are His masterpieces: They show us what His grace can do in a human being’s life.

And, so, it is with the Blessed Mother Mary: When we ask the Blessed Mother to pray for us, her intercession is so powerful because God wants to show us that she is a work He is most proud of; that she is an example of how powerfully God can work in a human being‘s life.


I’d like to share two examples of the power of Mary’s intercession in my own life. 


I had a friend who, for a year, was having trouble getting a job as an accountant. He applied to many places for work and he wasn’t able to land a job. So, I asked him to pray a rosary with me for that intention. He came to my house; I lit a candle; we prayed the rosary. He wasn’t even Catholic but he was willing to do anything at this point. Well, that week he got three job offers; not interviews but job offers from his previous interviews. He was so astounded by the power of that prayer that he wanted to become Catholic. Unfortunately, that flame of conversion flickered out pretty quickly but he did vocalize how amazed he was at the power of prayer and Mary’s intercession.


My second example is, I come from a family whose parents are divorced. And the divorce caused a rift between my dad’s side of the family and myself and my siblings, very unfortunately. And, 10 years after this rift, I was discovering the apparitions of and messages from Mary at Medjugorje, which is in Bosnia. In the 1980s, Mary appeared to six children there and one of the visionaries continues to see Mary even to this day on a monthly basis. And, in my research, I discovered an email address where people can send intentions and someone prints them, or saves them to a thumb drive, and places them where Mary appears each month. So, I wrote an email asking Mary to pray that my family reunite…Two weeks later, for the first time in about 10 years, my siblings and I went to dinner with my grandmother: My father‘s mother whom we were especially estranged from at the time…I was astounded at how quickly it happened.


And, to be sure: We all know prayer isn’t magic. Just because we ask God for something through the Blessed Mother doesn’t mean we automatically receive it exactly the way we desire it but, nonetheless, praying to Mary for her intercession is always a win-win every single time because praying for Mary to intercede for us always brings us closer to Jesus; It’s pleasing to God to praise Him for the glorious work He did in her. 


And, if you have been faithful to your devotion to Mary long enough, I’m sure you have amazing stories of your own of how Mary’s intercession has profoundly affected your life.


So, on this feast of our Blessed Mother, let us renew our trust in her powerful intercession that she has with her Son; let us trust in the powerful intercession that Jesus allows Mary to have in order to highlight that she is His most marvelous masterpiece, and that we should (1) imitate her trust of God’s will and (2) imitate her love for and trust in her Son.

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