| Readings: | Genesis 3:9-15,20 Ephesians 1:3-6,11-12 Luke 1:26-38 |
| Date: | December 8, 2023 - Feast of the Immaculate Conception |
Today's feast celebrates the fact that Mary was conceived in her mother Anne's womb without any original sin or its effects. But many Catholics think the feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates Jesus' conception in Mary's womb. I guess that is not too surprising since the Gospel we just heard, and we hear it on every Feast of the Immaculate Conception, is the story of Jesus' conception! But within today's Gospel we have a very direct reference to Mary's immaculate conception.
The angel Gabriel addresses Mary as "full of grace". In English that doesn't give us much of a clue to Mary's immaculate conception but the Greek does. The word we hear translated as "full of grace" is kecharitomene. Kecharitomene is a perfect passive participle of charitoo, meaning "to fill or endow with grace." Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates that Mary was graced in the past but with continuing effects in the present. Some Protestants object to the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception because Mary, in her Magnificat, says that her 'spirit rejoices in God my savior' and only a sinner needs a savior. On Catholic.com, the article on today's feast says that by special intervention of God, Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin; she was redeemed by the grace of Christ but in a special way - by anticipation.
It goes on to offer this analogy: Suppose a man falls into a deep pit, and someone reaches down to pull him out. The man has been "saved" from the pit. Now imagine a woman walking along, and she too is about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment that she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her. She too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way: She was not simply taken out of the pit, she was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place. This is the illustration Christians have used for a thousand years to explain how Mary was saved by Christ. By receiving Christ's grace at her conception, she had his grace applied to her before she was able to become mired in original sin and its stain. She has more reason to call God her Savior than we do, because he saved her in an even more glorious manner!
I remember thinking when I was younger that it's too bad that we weren't immaculately conceived so it would be easier to keep from sinning. But the truth is that being conceived without sin is not a guarantee that we won't sin. As one commentator said, Mary was conceived without sin but she was not conceived without a will. Adam and Eve were both created without any original sin, and they still were able to sin. Plus each one of us who has been baptized, came up out of the water of that baptism exactly the same as Mary was from her conception: freed from original sin. So we can't blame our tendency to sin on the fact that we were not immaculately conceived. Our sinning is the direct result of our wills.
So let us try to be like Mary, not because she was immaculately conceived but because throughout her life she submitted her will to the will of God. Let her response to the angel Gabriel be our prayer today, and every day: Behold I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to God's word.