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Perhaps that is how we should think of tonight’s feast of the Immaculate Conception: the dawning of salvation amid the night of sin and death.

The newly renovated church is a metaphor of our Advent journey. Like our reading from Isaiah, it is a link to times past, indeed, to the original church built on land that once belonged to Charles Carroll.

May you enter into candidacy with hearts filled with expectant hope and jubilant praise, for the Lord who comes into our midst every day of our lives ready to accomplish in us and through us more than we could ever ask or imagine.

In taking this step towards the diaconate, you seek to answer Jesus’ prayer for laborers for the harvest. An acolyte, “akalouthos”, is a follower of Jesus Christ, a disciple, and a co-worker with him in the vineyard.

When we are doers, not talkers, when we build on solid rock, we experience over time a growth in intimacy with the Lord, a greater sense of communion with his Church, and a greater affinity with the poor with whom Jesus identifies.

On the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year, the Church offers us a vision of life in Christ that frees us to embrace the future – not merely the near future, but the absolute future, that future we were created for and that we long for.

Indeed, the beginning of a new year of grace sheds light on the most essential role of your pastor and of every pastor, namely, to lead the people he serves to share every more deeply in all that the Lord taught and did to bring about our salvation: the mysteries of his Incarnation, his life and teaching, and above all, his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

Let us recall why we are doing this – we are doing it for the same reason that Mother Lange started this school: she was an educator who gave young women of color a chance to claim their dignity, to develop their talents, and to spend their lives glorifying God by their works. Times have changed but her vision endures.