The
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
Dear brothers and sisters,
What is it that so distinguishes
the Blessed Virgin Mary from us? The obvious answer is that none of us has
physically given birth to the Son of God, but there is something greater yet
that distinguishes her from us. The fundamental difference between the Mother
of God and us is found in obedience. We, like our first parents, very often
disobey the Lord God and look upon him as a rival; we do not like our
creaturely status and are thus prone to harbor an antagonism against the
Creator and to strive against his will (cf. Genesis 3:6). Mary, on the other
hand, delights in her status as a creature and recognizes the love of the
Creator for her – and for all of us – and simply says to him, “May it be done”
(Luke 1:38).
Reflecting on the reality of our
lives, the celebrated author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis once said that
obedience
appears
to me more and more the whole business of life, the only road to love and peace
– the cross and the crown in one … What indeed can we imagine Heaven to be but
unimpeded obedience. I think this is one of the causes of our love of inanimate
nature, that in it we see things which unswervingly carry out the will of their
Creator, and are therefore wholly beautiful: and though their kind of obedience is infinitely lower
than ours, yet the degree is so much more perfect that a Christian can see the
reason that the Romantics had in feeling a certain holiness in the wood and
water.[1]
The Romantics, of course, such as
Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, took this too far, but that is a
conversation perhaps for another day. The forest is beautiful because the trees
and streams do what they were created to do, and in so doing they glorify God.
The sunset is beautiful because the sun and the clouds and the sky do what they
were created to do. The natural world is beautiful because it is obedient.
The great J.R.R. Tolkien once said
it is upon the Blessed Virgin Mary that “all my own small perception of beauty
both in majesty and simplicity is founded.”[2]
The great beauty of Mary which has captivated so many artists and poets through
the centuries is found in her beauty; she is eminently beautiful because she
willingly and lovingly obeyed the will of God in all things. This is why Saint
Irenaeus of Lyons said, “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the
obedience of Mary.”[3]
We know that through the
disobedience of Adam and Eve, our first parents, sin and death entered into
Creation and the original righteousness with which the Creator created was
lost. Saint Paul tells us that “as by one man’s disobedience many were many
sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).
If
Jesus is the new Adam, then salvation is not just about saving sinners from the
fires of hell. It is about undoing the
effects of the Fall of Adam and Eve… What does any of this have to do with
Mary? The answer is simple: If Jesus is
the new Adam, then who is the new Eve? According to the book of Genesis,
Adam is not the only human being created by God and placed in the Garden of
Eden. Moreover, Adam does not bring sin and death into the world alone. As
Adam’s partner, Eve plays an essential role in bringing about the fall of
humankind.[4]
So, too, does Mary play an
essential role in bringing about the redemption of humankind, and of all of
Creation. This is why Saint Augustine says that “through woman, poison was
poured upon man, in order to deceive him, but salvation was poured out upon man
from a woman, that he might be reborn in grace.”[5] So great is the honor of the new Eve, of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, that she “Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from
Christ’s victory over sin: she was persevered from all stain of original sin
and by a special grace committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly
life.”[6]
Here
it is good to ask what we mean by the original sin, what it is that we are
subject to, but Mary is not. If we are honest, we know that
…a contradiction exists in our being. On the one hand every person
knows that he must do good and intimately wants to do it. Yet at the same time
he also feels the other impulse to do the contrary, to follow the path of
selfishness and violence, to do only what pleases him, while also knowing that
in this way he is acting against the good, against God and against his neighbor.
In his Letter to the Romans St Paul expressed this contradiction in our being
in this way: "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not
do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want" (7:18-19). This inner
contradiction of our being is not a theory. Each one of us experiences it every
day. And above all we always see around us the prevalence of this second will.
It is enough to think of the daily news of injustice, violence, falsehood and
lust. We see it every day. It is a fact.[7]
By the singular grace of her
Immaculate Conception, Mary was free from all stain of this original sin, but
we, of course, are not.
We celebrate this great Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception in the midst of Advent as we are preparing for the
Second Coming of Christ Jesus for two reasons. The first is rather obvious:
nine months from today, on September 8th, we will celebrate the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The second reason is a bit more profound:
Mary provides for us a shining example of obedience to the will of God.
Tomorrow, we will hear Saint John
the Baptist cry out, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Luke 3:4; cf. Isaiah 40:3)!
Mary teaches us to prepare the way of the Lord; we do so by complete and loving
obedience to his command, by loving God and neighbor above all else, even more
than myself. Let us, then, ask her to intercede for us and to shine a light
upon the darkness of our hearts, so that, by confessing our sinful disobedience
of God, “we may be delivered from all our faults.”[8]
Then, with the Immaculate Conception, we will be able to “sing joyfully to the Lord” when at last he comes (Psalm 98:3). Amen.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Letter to Alan
Griffiths. In Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien,
C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams (New York: Farrar, Straus, and
Giroux, 2016), 250.
[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to Robert
Murray, S.J., 2 December 1953. In Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
2000), 172.
[3] Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 3.22.4. In Brant
Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary:
Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah (New York: Image, 2018), 34.
[4] Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah
(New York: Image, 2018), 15-16.
[5] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 51.3. In Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, 35.
[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 411.
[7] Pope Benedict XVI, General
Audience Address, 3 December 2008.
[8] Roman Missal, Prayer over the Offerings for the Solemnity of the
Immaculate Conception.
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