TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2009 -  FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF MARY

 GENESIS 3:9-15, 20

After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree, the LORD God called to the man and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it.” The LORD God then asked the woman, “Why did you do such a thing?” The woman answered, “The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it.”

Then the LORD God said to the serpent “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; on your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. 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.”

The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living.

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 EPHESIANS 1:3-6, 11-12

Brothers and sisters: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, 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, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.

In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One
who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ.

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LUKE 1:26-38

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you.” But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.”  But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God.” Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of  the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.
            

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(NOTE: The following is a Deacon's Dialogue I did some time ago on the Immaculate Conception of Mary)

MARY IMMACULATE

One of the foundational teachings of the Church is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  She who would bear the Son of God was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular  grace and privilege of Almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (Pius IX, 1854)  It was necessary that Mary  be free from  even Original Sin so that she would be able to give free assent of her faith to the announcement of her vocation... (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #490) Mary’s Immaculate Conception was a preparation by God that would allow her to bring forth, in human flesh, the Word of God. 

Free from Original Sin, Mary would also remain a virgin in perpetuam.  She was a virgin before and after Jesus is conceived in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, and she remained a virgin for the rest of her life.   The fact of Mary’s perpetual virginity is as necessary to our understanding of the Incarnation as is the fact of her Immaculate Conception.  Just as Mary could not be stained even with Original Sin because the vessel that would hold the Holy of Holies must be the purest of pure, so, too, once having held the very personification of God, she must forever more remain unstained and her womb unused for anything except the divine.  In her womb she housed the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  How could this womb ever hold anything of common origin?  She is for all eternity a sacred vessel.

In our care to preserve the Sacredness of the Blessed Sacrament, the Church has proposed a discipline on the use of the Eucharistic vessels.  Once a chalice, patten or ciborium has been used in the liturgy it cannot be used for anything else.  It has held the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and is forever reserved for this use.  How much more must womb that nourished and housed the Body and Blood of Christ for the first nine months of his earthly existence for ever remain unused for any  other purpose.  Just as once the Body and Blood of Christ has filled the chalice and ciborium they are forever sanctified, so too, once the womb of the Blessed Virgin has held the person of Jesus it is forever sanctified and set apart. 

This doctrine causes concern for some who read of the brothers and sisters of Jesus in the Gospels.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that the Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary.  In fact James and Joseph, “brothers of Jesus,” are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls “the other Mary.”  They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.  (CCC #500) If, indeed, Mary had other sons it would not have been necessary or appropriate for Jesus to entrust her to the care of the Beloved Disciple as he hung dying on the cross.  Her other children would have cared for her.  But Jesus gave her to John and in so doing gave her as mother to us all.

Prepared from all eternity as the one singularly graced by God through her Immaculate Conception so she could bear God’s Son, Mary remained a virgin her entire life.  She remained pure of her own free will and lived her life in obedience to God’s will.  First among the disciples of her Divine Son she now shares his glory.  Elevated body and soul into heaven at the conclusion of her journey on earth, she now lives the fullness of the Resurrection with God who is her Father, her Spouse and her Son.   Chosen from among the children of God she now embraces each of us with a mother’s love.  Radiant in the rays of God’s glory she intercedes for her children with her Son, Jesus Christ. 

Deacon Ed