8 December 2024
Immaculate Conception of Our Lady
There are few feasts in our liturgical calendar that are more difficult to understand than the Immaculate Conception, but also more fruitful for the devout soul. First of all, let’s make clear what we are talking about. The feast refers to the moment that Mary, the future Mother of Jesus, was conceived in the womb of her own mother, Saint Anne. The dogma does not say that the conception of Mary was miraculous, like that of Jesus. Her conception, unlike that of Jesus, was a natural one in its cause, that is to say, Mary was conceived through the carnal union of her mother Anne and her father Joachim. She was conceived like we all are, and as God meant us to be.
What was different, and what this feast celebrates, is that even though she was conceived in a natural way, the stain of original sin that all the descendants of Adam and Eve have inherited did not touch her. This is the miracle of grace that we honour on this day. God stepped in and prevented her soul from being stained by original sin because He destined her to become the Mother of His Son. To be the Mother of God necessarily implies radical purity that excludes even the faintest collusion with sin. That is the dogma: Baby Mary was saved in advance, preserved from sin, thanks to the future merits of the Son she would give birth to in just a few years time. It is an extraordinary and unique privilege. It is also the realisation of the first prophecy in the Bible when God told the serpent that his head would be crushed by the woman to come. The serpent conquered Eve but is conquered by Mary.
Such is the dogma, but we might legitimately wonder what it has to do with us and how it can help us. We live in a world in which sin and evil are not only the daily news; they are promoted as normal, and virtuous persons are considered with suspicion or even told they need help. We cannot go through a day without seeing it and being influenced by it. Is this mystery relevant to us poor sinners still in this valley of tears?
If it were not, God would not have revealed it to us. He wanted us to know and for many good reasons. Let’s consider just one of them: Mary in her person already realises the perfection of the creature created by God, and the perfect bride of Christ without stain or wrinkle, and therefore her very existence means that the community of believers, the Church, is all pure, without stain, from the very beginning, and ever will be despite the sins of the members of the Church.
This encourages us tremendously, especially when we are badly influenced by members of the Church who give scandal by their false teaching or their wayward kind of life. It is not the Church that fails when a bishop teaches heresy, a priest fails in his duty of care, or when parents refuse to be open to life. The Church is not stained by the sins of her members. The Immaculate Conception is there to remind us of that. Men come and go; the Church remains. And that also explains why, when someone leaves the Church, we know that it never was really about the Church at all, but about themselves. If someone says they are leaving the Church because of bad Catholics or because of the crisis in the Church, it is because they simply have not understood what the Church is. St John already pointed that out in his first epistle: They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us (1 Jn 2:19). So let us take heart. There are many trials in the Church today, many sins with which her spotless image seems to be defiled. That is on the surface, but in herself, like Mary, the Church is immaculate, and she is our Mother, and like any good person of honour, we will stand by our Mother even unto bitter death, rather than abandon her. It does not matter to us how confusing things may be or how heretical many members of the hierarchy may be. What matters is that the Church is our Immaculate Mother, and we stand with her.
In addition to this essential lesson we can learn from the feast, it is also good to reflect a bit upon the purity of Mary. In today’s introit, the Church applies the words of the prophet Isaiah to Mary: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, and with the robe of justice He hath covered me, as a bride adorned with her jewels (Is 61:10).
Using the image of a garment, the liturgy seeks to convey to us the beauty of Our Lady’s body and soul. Indeed, the tragedy of sin is that it defiles the soul, making it impure and loathsome in the eyes of God. This is why when Adam and Eve sinned, they had to be clothed, for clothing, over and beyond its practical necessity, symbolises the restoration of grace. Mary was clothed from the start and she never lost her bridal gown. As a bride adorned for her wedding, so the soul of Mary is adorned from the first moment of her conception. For the rest of us, we are born deprived of grace, and therefore spiritually naked. It is through Baptism and the other sacraments that the robe of divine grace is given to us to cover us and make us splendid in the eyes of God. This is one of the reasons for which when we are allowed to approach God in His holy Sacraments, especially Holy Mass and Holy Communion, we should present ourselves in the most dignified way at our disposal. We are not going to an audience with the King of England but with the King of the Universe! Our bodily raiment and postures reflect what is in our souls, and the respect we have for God.
On this day then, let us ask Mother Mary to share with us something of her immaculate purity. Like any good mother, she is all too ready to share with her children. Rather, whatever she has, already belongs to her children. So if we ask, she will endow us with a great love for purity, for chastity, for a chaste way of looking at others, of thinking of others and remembering that each of us is called by God to eternal union with Him in Heaven.
Let us also ask her to share with us her wisdom, she who is called the Seat of Wisdom and the Virgin Most Prudent. Rest assured that if you turn to Our Lady in doubt or when you have a difficult matter to resolve, she will come through and show you the way. The first step towards making that happen is to calm down, pray and wait for an answer. It is infallibly the case that if we are moved with passion, we should first seek light and calm in prayer, and then Mother Mary can put the right thoughts in our minds, and the right words on our lips.
Above all, let us remember that we are members of a Church which is pure in her essence, but burdened with the sins of her members. Let us seek by every means to purify those sins in ourselves and in others, by accepting to suffer with and for and from the Church we love. She is our Mother; she loves us and needs us dearly.
