by Sr. Anne Joan Flanagan, FSPGod loved us first (cf. 1 John 4:10).That is the message of the coming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th, the day we praise God for the way his grace enfolded the Virgin Mary from the first moment of her existence, without any merit of hers. Mary's Immaculate Conception (her being created and sustained in grace, without any trace of original sin) was the first ray of the "dawn from on high" that brought the world the unsurpassable expression of ...