Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The first reading from the book of Genesis tells simply of the Fall of Mankind. The sin of our origins became a reality. From the “order” of creation now is introduced “dis-order,” by the dis-obedience of Adam. And an uncountable amount of disorder it was that was unleashed that day! The most serious being the concept that mankind is cut off from God’s justice and God’s peace!
In the second reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians, we see, however, that God immediately set a plan in motion to re-order the dis-order; to reestablish justice and peace for the man and the woman and their descendants. That plan was all about sending a redeemer, a reconciler, a savior. Only a God-man could reconcile the God whose justice was disturbed. The person to do that was the Word, His Son - who would take on our human nature.
Of all people in human history, God chose a very special maiden of Nazareth to be the mother of the God-Man - her name was Mary. She was daughter of Joachim and Anne. The power of the Most High - the Holy Spirit - would over shadow her and the fruit of her womb would be most blessed of all men - thus making her most blessed of all women!
In order to make sure that Mary was perfectly free to choose her part in salvation history - Mary herself was preserved from original disorder, original sin! Original sin takes away our ability to be free. And so, Mary, who also stood in need of redemption as a human being, shared beforehand in the merits of her own Son, Jesus - the merits that would be won for all -when he died on the cross!
This is what we celebrate today! Mary’s perfect freedom! Mary’s perfect love for God! Mary’s perfect choice to cooperate in the salvation of the world! Mary’s perfect trust that everything would be taken care of by God in due time, and in the way in which it was supposed to happen!
With Mary, we pray that God’s will be done in us! By our Baptism, we share in the life that Mary always had, a life free of original sin! Though Mary never sinned in her life - never tainted the new life of redemption in her soul - this is not true of us! We have sinned, we do sin, and we will most likely continue to sin - and so we stand in constant need of God’s mercy, his love, his forgiveness! Never a day should go by that we do not plead for our own sinfulness and the sinfulness of the whole world. Grace, mercy, forgiveness, justice and peace are available - they flow from the very Mass that we are celebrating right now - but we must ask for them! And then, open our minds, our hearts and our hands and receive everything that God has to give us!
Hail, Mary, full of grace! Help us to use wisely the grace that - because of your decisions in life - so freely is available to us! And pray for us, now and the hour of our death.
Amen.
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