Our readings today pretty much cover all of salvation history.
From the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden to the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. When I was younger, I thought the Immaculate Conception was specifically related to Jesus.
And perhaps many have this perception also.
The fact of the matter is The Immaculate Conception specifically relates to Our Mother Mary… but, it has everything to do with Jesus Christ.
A Tabernacle
So we know that Jesus Christ is True God and true man… We, as a Church, recognized that truth back in the early days and we will all repeat this truth during the Creed. Let us look to the center of the Altar and you see that Jesus in, the Blessed Sacrament, is kept in a clean pristine tabernacle. No stains or anything resembling dirt or messiness. We do this simply because nothing impure can be around God. When we think of Heaven… it is perfect. There is no sin there is no sadness etc. Because by the very definition… God cannot have any sin near. Any sin would simply would be forced away by His sheer goodness.
We know from
our Gospel reading today that Jesus was inside Mary’s womb. Could God be in a
place that suffered like the rest of us do from original sin? We know that God
could not be in that condition. Mary therefore was kept from original sin by
the grace of God himself. So she could be the “tabernacle” of God.
We worship Him
We instinctually know that we should not keep Jesus in a dirty box next to the toaster in our house. He by simply the fact that he is God we know He should be worshipped, taken care of carefully. Notice, everything that we imagine that is good about being near God is confirmed by the message of the Angel Gabriel. “Hail, full of Grace.” Full…. Not half full, not partial, not a drop or two of grace… but Full of Grace… God’s grace. And if Mary is full of grace… there is no room for anything else… she is perfectly clean… she is immaculate. She has been in that state since she was conceived, because if not… it would be less than full. She was conceived immaculately with no stain of sin in her.
And hence we honor her today under that Title. The Immaculate Conception. And while some people may think that this is a newer feast.. It really isn’t, We know the Byzantine Church celebrated this feast going back to at least the year 400 and most likely well before that.
I want everyone to take from today’s Mass that Mary is the Immaculate Conception. She held Jesus in her womb when she gave her Yes to God in our Gospel today.
Freewill
It is
interesting to note that when we are reading today’s Gospel, Mary did still
have her Freewill. She could have said
no, I suppose, but not suffering from Original sin, she could make a properly
informed conscious decision. It is extremely important that we recognize how
that works as well. We have that same
freewill, and we can use it for good or ill.
We simply have to recognize that we are making decisions with the
effect of original sin… so we stop and ponder it a bit longer than Mary would
have had to. The great news is that given
the time and a well formed conscious we also can make the good decision.
A few weeks ago I asked a number of people to share with me their favorite Marion stories. It did not take long for responses to come rolling in. The one factor that kept coming up is love and kindness. Mary is Immaculate and is close very close to God. Her intercession greatly assists us. But whether it is the loving kindness shown to Juan Diego as Our Lady of Guadalupe, or in assisting with prayers and petitions to help a very special miracle baby… Mary exudes love.
We worship Him.. .so does she
We should remember one very important thing about Mary… She was the first and for many years the only member of the Catholic Church. She was the first member of the Church of Christ. And all of these things she kept in her heart.
The important things which we know about Mary is that at every step of her life she pointed to Christ and even said at the wedding feast of Cana “Do whatever He tells you.”
We do not worship her, that is for God alone, however as the perfect model of Christian we certainly want to emulate her and by our every movement… also point to Christ.
Pointing to Christ and offering ourselves for Christ is what we will be doing shortly in our Eucharistic Celebration. We have a model in Mary of how we should focus on Christ… It is this feast which allows us the ability to point to Christ as the Way, The Truth, and the life for each of us.