Before dawn on a crisp November morning several years ago, I woke up, quickly got dressed, and headed outside. My Dad and I drove a short distance to a nearby field and got out of the car. He told me to walk slowly and quietly through the marsh until we arrived at our destination. We climbed up into our deer stand and looked around. A few minutes later, the sun slowly began to spread its orange rays over the trees on the horizon. The world, usually so full of noises and bright light, was calm and covered with a soft light. It felt like something was going to happen, something important, something unexpected.

Later that day, I asked my Dad, “Why do we have to be ready at dawn?” He told me that dawn is when things happen. It is when the deer move around to find food or a better place of rest. In the middle of the day, hunters are much less likely to encounter them. The importance of dawn, though, is not limited to deer hunting. Many things in our lives have a beginning to their existence—a dawn to something new. Paying attention to the “dawn” of these things can be helpful. If we try to understand each thing directly, its light may be too bright, too blinding. At dawn, even the sun is not too bright.

What then is the most important dawn? Well, our salvation is of supreme importance. Jesus Christ is our salvation. And Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ. So, Mary’s conception is the dawn of our salvation.

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, a feast that celebrates how Mary was uniquely conceived without any stain of sin. In other words, she was redeemed from the first moment of her existence. Unlike us, she was not first born in sin and then redeemed—she was simply redeemed without ever having been conquered by sin. To many of us, this fact may seem like a purely abstract point without any real, concrete importance. What difference does it make for my salvation?

The preface for today’s Mass gives us an answer. This prayer describes Mary as “an advocate of grace and a model of holiness.” Mary is a model of holiness for us. She teaches us what it means to be holy insofar as she is perfectly holy. What, then, does her holiness consist of? Acts of faith? Works of mercy? Prayer? No. These are not what make Mary holy. These are important, but they are not the real basis for Mary’s holiness.

Mary did not exist before her Immaculate Conception. She simply did not—indeed, could not—do any action in order to become holy at her conception. Instead, her holiness consists in her being redeemed, in her being “full of grace.”

So what does this mean for us? It means that if we too desire to become holy, if we too desire to become more and more redeemed, we must remember that our holiness does not find its ultimate source in the various things that we do. The true dawn of our holiness is not to be found in our charitable contributions or our kind words. No, our holiness, like that of our Mother, comes from our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Mary turned her eyes away from herself and kept her eyes fixed upon her Son, the ultimate dawn of salvation. Mary’s immaculate conception is the dawn of our salvation in time, yet it points to the eternal dawn: God himself.

Accordingly, we wait with earnest desire for him to come again. We do not wait to prove our own worth before God when he comes. Rather, we wait for when “the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). Unlike all the other dawns, though, this dawn will not come from below the horizon but from above.

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Image: Francisco Rizi, La Inmaculada Concepción.