At Prayer Book Mattins on the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

... though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God - Sentences, Daniel 9:9-10.

But, unlike us, the Daughter of Sion has heard and kept the word of God. As Augustine says, "Mary, too, is blessed, because she heard the word of God and kept it. She kept truth safe in her mind even better than she kept flesh safe in her womb. Christ is truth, Christ is flesh; Christ as truth was in Mary's mind, Christ as flesh in Mary's womb".

And there is no health in us - General Confession.

We rightly hesitate to say this of the Blessed Virgin: a respectful reserve and reticence is called for.  Hooker declares regarding her sanctity and the presence of sin, "we say with St. Augustine, for the honour’s sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ, we are not willing, in this cause, to move any question of his mother".

... that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure, and holy - Absolution.

We pray that we may be pure and holy: she is pure and holy.  Soon we will be praying Cranmer's Christmas collect: "Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin": Cranmer shows no hesitation in using a term which evoked the traditional reverence for the Blessed Virgin. Lancelot Andrewes echoes the praise of the Church East and West for this work of grace in the Blessed Virgin: "Commemorating the all-holy immaculate, more than blessed Mary, Mother of God and ever virgin, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other and all our life, to Christ our God".  This praise is also set forth in the 1549 rite: "And here we do give unto thee most high praise, and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue, declared in all thy saints, from the beginning of the world: And chiefly in the glorious and most blessed virgin Mary, mother of thy son Jesu Christ our Lord and God".

To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts: as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness - Venite.

Her heart was not hardened: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38); "but Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19); "his mother kept all these sayings in her heart" (Luke 2:51).  She is the faithful Daughter of Sion, the one who is blessed because she heard the word of God and kept it (cf. Luke 11:28).

... thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb - Te Deum.

From this "pure Virgin" the Eternal Word, for our redemption, took our substance: and thus We praise thee, O God, "For that fair blessed mother-maid, Whose flesh redeemed us".

(The photograph is of Our Lady of Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral.)