Why the Immaculate Conception?
We celebrate tonight (this morning) the feast of the Immaculate Conception. This feast is a holy day of obligation which under the precepts of the Church requires the faithful to attend Mass.
So since you are here anyway, I am going to give you a pop quiz. It is a one question multiple choice quiz. So here goes:
The Immaculate Conception is: 1) the incredible catch by fullback Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers in a 1972 playoff game against the Oakland Raiders; 2) the commemoration of Mary being conceived without sin; 3) an idea perfectly and successfully presented; or 4) the commemoration of Jesus being conceived without original sin. Who wants to answer the question?
If you guessed number two, you are right. There is sometimes some confusion about the dogmatic foundation of this feast. Jesus was conceived without sin, but since He was God, it could not be otherwise. Mary, on the other hand, was not God, but fully human. But the Church teaches that Mary was immaculately conceived, even though her parents were not.
Many volumes of theological works over the centuries have been devoted to this issue. The origins of this feast go back to the seventh century. It was universally celebrated in the Church by the end of the 15th century. And on this date in 1854, the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary was made an infallible teaching by Pope Pius IX.
Now this is all theologically important, but by now you might be asking, who cares? Why should any of us, here on Whidbey Island in the beginning of the 21st century care if Mary was immaculately conceived or not?
At one level, there is a fairly simple reason we should care. Since Jesus as God was without sin, it would not have made a lot of sense for Him to enter the world as a sinner. He was sent by God the Father to overcome sin and death, and enable us to do the same if we followed the Gospel life He laid before us as a model before He returned to heaven.
Beyond this simple explanation, our Scriptures provide a much richer foundation. Our first reading from the Book of Genesis reminds us that God intended all of us to live peaceful, sinless lives of love with an all-loving God. By conscious choice, Adam and Eve rejected that life, thereby ushering sin and death into the world. St. Paul in our second reading from the letter to the Ephesians reminds us that the Trinitarian God’s all-embracing love led God the Father to send His only Son into the world to restore the covenant of love with all human beings.
God could have chosen any means to restore that covenant. But because God loved humans so much, He wanted to literally live among them as a human. So the God of love chose to enter the world the human way. But since he was sinless, he needed a sinless vessel. He would need an immaculately conceived and sinless vessel by which to enter into the world. So Mary would receive the incredible grace from God to be immaculately conceived.
But Mary of course, was much more than a physical vessel. Again remembering our first reading tonight, the first Adam and Eve rejected God’s love. The second Adam and Eve were Jesus and Mary. They accepted the call from God to love God and others. The spotless nature of their souls was not immediately clear to the human Jesus and Mary, as demonstrated by our Gospel from Luke this evening (morning). Mary is reported as troubled about her designation by the angel Gabriel as “full of grace,” that is, immaculately conceived and about to give birth to a human Jesus also without sin. But like Jesus, she agrees to love God and others above all else. She agrees to play a key role in making possible the opportunity for all of us to overcome sin and death.
Since St. Paul in our second reading stresses that we were intended by God from the beginning of time to be “holy and without blemish in God’s sight,” but that that intention was rejected by the first human beings, how could we now overcome that rejection? Following Jesus’ model of life was of course one answer. But to whom could we look for proof that any fully human being could in fact become “holy and without blemish in God’s sight?” The answer: the immaculately conceived Mary.
Put quite simply, if God through the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, could perfect one human being, God’s graces can also perfect us, offering Mary’s life as a model. Mary as a model of life for all of us is not just a turnkey. Her humanity makes such her model of life interactive with us. Her intercessions on our behalf to the Lord because of her special relationship with God bring us into the reality of the co-redemptive role for Mary as a human leading other humans back to God.
The Immaculate Conception of Mary provides the foundation for the spotless witness of her life to which we are also all called. As a mother, she shows fidelity to her child. As a follower of Jesus, she is the most faithful of witnesses, sharing in the agony of His earthly death, and the joy of His rising from the death. As she accepts the role as Mother of the Church given to her by her Son on Calvary, she becomes a leader and friend to Jesus’ followers, the mother of the Church, and therefore the Mother of all of us.
The roles of parent, friend, witness to Christ, and model of Christ are all roles to which we are called as well. They are signposts on a successful journey to salvation that Mary achieved. With her help and God’s grace, we can achieve that successful journey as well. And this is why the Immaculate Conception matters to us.