“HAIL, MARY,
FULL OF GRACE ... ”
December 8th,
2017: Immaculate Conception of the BVM.
Genesis
3:9-15, 20; Ephesians, 1:3-6, 11-12;
Luke 1:26-38.
Have you ever felt so ashamed of
yourself that you wanted to run away and hide? Today’s first reading is about a
man who felt that way. After disobeying God’s command, Ada m
hides, hoping to avoid a confrontation with the loving Creator and Father
against whom he has rebelled.
When God pursues him and asks, “Where
are you?” the man replies: “I was afraid ... so I hid myself.” He thought he
would find happiness by ‘doing his own thing.’ Instead he finds only
disappointment, frustration, and shame. Is there anyone here who has never had
a similar experience? This simple story is no primitive folk tale. It is the
story of Everyman – true to our common experience of life. If the story has a
moral, it is this. We find happiness, joy, and peace only when we stop trying
to run away and hide from God, and begin entrusting ourselves to him in faith.
The Church gives us, in Holy
Scripture, a beautiful human model of this trusting faith: Mary, the mother of
the Lord. The Catechism says: “By her complete adherence to the Father’s will,
to his Son’s redemptive work, and to every prompting of the Holy Spirit, the
Virgin Mary is the Church’s model of faith and charity.” (No. 967)
The gospels of Luke and Matthew tell
us that Mary was betrothed to Joseph.
That was a kind of religiously sanctioned engagement. Nowhere do we find any
account or reference to Mary and Joseph marrying.
Instead Luke tells us about the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary to tell her she
was to be the mother of God’s Son. To that Mary said “Be it done to me
according to your word.” That was
Mary’s marriage: To God, not to Joseph. Having given herself completely to God,
it was impossible for Mary ever to give herself to a man. That is why she is
called, and is, “ever virgin.”
All of this remained unknown to
others, both at Bethlehem and later at Nazareth
On today’s feast of the Immaculate
Conception, we praise God for preparing Mary from the moment of her conception
in her mother’s womb (which took place through normal human procreation) from
that fundamental defect of human nature which the theologians call “original
sin.” This defect means that we come into the world imperfect, not as God
originally intended us to be. From this defect we are healed by baptism, when
God reaches out and claims us for his own. In baptism we are reborn
spiritually, becoming God’s children by adoption; and by his free gift, we are
graced with the perfect human nature of our savior and redeemer, Jesus Christ.
The Immaculate Conception means that
Mary had no need for baptism. As the Catechism says, quoting the words of our
second reading: “The Father blessed Mary more than any other created person ‘in
Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ and chose her ‘in
Christ before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before him
in love.’” (No. 492)
Today we praise God for bestowing this
unique privilege on Mary in order to prepare her beforehand to be the mother of
his Son. That gift did not take away Mary’s freedom, however. For her, as for
each of us, her acceptance by God – her salvation – was a free gift that
required her cooperation with God, the giver of this gift.
As we honor Mary for her words of free
assent, “May it be done to me according to your word,” we invoke her prayers
that we may make our assent to God;
that we too may say our “Yes” to God, as she did.
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