Genesis 3:9-15.20
Ephesians 1:3-6.11-12
Luke 1.26-38
You may have heard that some Catholics think the feast of the Immaculate Conception is honoring the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb. That would be a misconception of the mystery before us. The misunderstanding may be reasonable as the Gospel for today even tells the story of Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb. But today we are honoring someone affected by the sinlessness of Jesus. We are honoring his Mother. And we are honoring her conception, her coming into existence in the flesh. We are recognizing her as “full of grace” as “highly favored” by God.
Another aspect of the feast that can lead to misunderstanding is the word “immaculate”. For most of us, immaculate has to do with getting things clean, and I mean clean—no dirt, no dust. We might get the impression that God has to clean up a human pathway so his Son could enter into the human world. We might think that everything and everyone around Mary is dirty, unclean, and sinful. We might even go so far as to say that the sexual activity by which Mary was conceived was sinful. And so God has to overcome that sinfulness by a sinless conception in Saint Anne. All that could be a distraction from what we are remembering and honoring today.
It might be helpful if we were to introduce a simple word like “origins”. The feast today is about Mary’s origins in God’s plan to save. We are honoring the woman who is part of God’s will and who says yes to that will. We are taking time today to honor the woman whose whole life is rooted in God. We are clearly proclaiming that this human being did not arise from anything but God’s love for humanity.
This is a feast that remembers and celebrates origins and foundations. It celebrates the original intention of human life as a life lived in communion with God. As much as we have grown accustomed to saying and singing Mary conceived without original sin, it is not feast about sin. It does not honor original sin. It is a feast about what lies before sin ever was. And before sin ever was, there was grace, favor, companionship, intimacy, presence and praise without end. Could we say that in honoring Mary, really we are honoring Eve, that first woman who could walk and talk with God in the garden freely and without shame? The angel greets Mary as one full of grace. He is not speaking as though he were bringing the grace to Mary or carrying a favor of relationship from God to her. He is in fact recognizing someone who has been that way all along, from the beginning.
Some people say the coming of God as a human being is a scandal. It is hard to accept that God would take on himself the human condition. Well, if that is a scandal, and it is from one point of view, then today’s feast is also a scandal. It goes against everything that we human beings experience. After all, we do experience the world as less than clean. We don’t live in an immaculate environment. Whether that environment is the air, the water, or the soil. And we don’t live in harmony with one another. Human relationships are for the most part broken relationships or at best fragile. We live in a society that many say is characterized by consumerism, greed and selfishness. We can’t get beyond ourselves. We look out for ourselves first. The only will is our own will. And we have become very good at making sure that the dirtiness of others is properly exposed for cleaning.
But today’s feast is a scandal in that is puts in front of us the image of someone who is rooted and grounded in goodness, love, fidelity and commitment. And we say that is the way human beings are called to be. Not by accident, not because it would be better that way, but because we are that way from the beginning. It is not sin that is original but rather grace. Eve walked with God in the garden before she and Adam made a choice that changed the relationship. The scandal is that a young women known to us as Mary of Nazareth, another way of saying, an insignificant woman because she comes from an insignificant place, is actually blessed to live as we were created from the beginning. We are proclaiming today as good news that a human being has lived her life in such a way that she is in harmony with God. We are proclaiming that God’s creative power is stronger than any negative force no matter how ancient we may say it is.
All that we ever say of someone when we say they are blessed, favored, beloved by God, we are saying today of Mary. We do not acknowledge it reluctantly or grudgingly. We don ot acknowledge it and then remain envious. We acknowledge it as truly a gift given by God. We say with the angel: Greetings, Mary, you are blessed by God. To acknowledge Mary’s honor is also to say something about our place before God. Acknowledging Mary’s election is also to admit our own election. We too are “chosen before the foundation of the world” as Paul says. We too are chosen to be holy and to live in love before God. There is solidarity between Mary and ourselves. She models for us what we as a community are called to be. And in honoring her we begin to allow the favor she received to work in our own lives. We are called to be a community that is conscious of the fact that we belong to God, that he has chosen us. We are called to be a community that waits for his word that seeks to do his will. We are called to be a community that lives by a plan that is larger than ourselves. We are called to be a community that reflects God’s willingness to be involved in the ordinary affairs of life, in human flesh. We are called to be a community that praises God for adopting us into his family, into his people.
Mary is given to us again as the image of our way of being human. She is given to us as the servant/handmaid who waits on the word and who says yes to it. That is the core of being human: to wait on a word and then to live attuned to it. To live a life in response to that Word is to live freely. Put in other words, it is to live without sin. For sin, as the first story we heard today, is nothing more than refusal to live by the Word.
In Mary we are offered a picture of ourselves as living by the Word and surrendering to it. In Mary we are offered a picture of what we, too, are called to become. We are to become a Church honoring its origins in God since the foundation of the world. We are to become a Church gathering to praise God because he has been faithful to her through the work of his beloved son, Jesus Christ.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB