Fr. JC Maximilian

Fr. Benedict Groeschel once said that for anyone who has lived in New York City, whether they are Christian, Jew, Muslim or atheist, they have no doubt about the reality of Original Sin. Original Sin is one of the most easily verified truths of faith. We have all experienced first hand the rupture or disharmony within our nature and in visible creation. As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Rom. 7:19). Original Sin causes a disordering of our desires, a dimming of the intellect, and a weakening of the will which causes a disharmony within ourselves, between us and other people, and in the rest of creation. Most tragically it ruptures our relationship with God. This is not what God intended when He created us.

In today’s seconding reading, from the letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul reminds us, that “He (God) chose us in Him (Christ), before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before Him. In love He destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ,…” (Eph. 1:4-5). Sadly, as we hear in today’s first reading from the Book of Genesis, there occurred an unnatural rupture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Original Sin in this way, “Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. That is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness” (CCC #397). “There is a curious similarity between the promise of the tempter in Genesis (“you will be like gods” in 3:5) and God’s promise, cited in St. Paul, to be adopted sons of God (v. 5). One way respects God’s wisdom; the way of the tempter rebels against it” (Fr. E. O’Higgins, “Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Sacerdos, December 8, 2004; http://www.sacerdos.org/english/index.phtml).

Now, you may be wondering what all this has to do with the Solemnity which we celebrate today; the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Even as Genesis describes the Fall, and the consequences of Original Sin, there is a promise of a future victory over temptation through a descendant of Eve. In Genesis 15 God says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Most of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have called this verse from Genesis the Protoevangelium, which means “the Gospel before the Gospel,” and they have seen the woman referred to in this verse as being the Blessed Virgin Mary, the new Eve, who gave birth to Jesus our Redeemer, the new Adam.

Because the Gospel reading for this Mass is that of the Annunciation, often people think that the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is about Jesus being conceived without the stain of Original Sin. However, what we celebrate today is the fact that due to the merits of Christ’s victory over sin, God preserved Mary from all stain of Original Sin, and that by a special grace of God she committed no sin of any kind during her entire earthly life. The Church has interpreted the archangel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you,” as the declaration of this wonderful truth about Mary.

What does all this mean? Well for one thing, we must be very clear, Mary is not a freak of nature. In her female nature, she is a daughter of Eve, like all other women in the world. However, unlike every other woman in the world, all the perfections of her womanly nature are found in Mary. In fact, the reality of womanhood is most perfectly manifested in the Blessed Virgin Mary because in her there is none of the disillusionment that sin causes. In Mary, God’s spirit shines undimmed and undistorted.

One of the difficulties that we have in thinking about the Immaculate Conception is that “we normally think of the sinless state of Mary in merely negative terms, not having sin” ( Fr. E. O’Higgins, ibid). However holiness, or sanctity, has two elements. Not only must there be the negative element of having no obstacle to God’s grace, namely sin and improper attachments, but there must also be the positive element of “docility to the lights and movements of the Holy Spirit so that the will only lets itself be moved in all and through all by the will of God” (Fr. C. Ermatinger, “Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Sacerdos, December 8, 2005; http://www.sacerdos.org/english/index.phtml). Through her fiat, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38), Mary shows that she “knew how to cooperate with God’s every movement of grace, perfectly and fully” (Fr. C. Ermatinger, ibid).

Sin is a closing off to reality, others, and to God, by our accepting self-deceptions and illusions. We choose ourselves over God. We settle for less. This acceptance of sin in our lives perpetuates division not only within ourselves, but between us and other, and ultimately in closes us off from God’s love.

However we must not become discouraged. God never stops loving us, and He never stops offering us the grace of redemption won for us by the Passion, Death and Resurrection of His son, Jesus. Plus we have the Blessed Virgin Mary, ever pure, ever full of grace, who is always ready to intercede for us with her son. We have all seen shirts and bracelets with “WWJD – What Would Jesus Do?” but maybe a more appropriate acronym, which I have also seen, is “FROG – Fully Rely on God.” We must trust in His love and obey Him, and Mary is always ready to help us do just that. With great devotion let us say, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”